THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 


PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 


CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 


NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 


convenes the 


WORKING GROUP MEETING 


ADVISORY BOARD ON 


RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 


ROCKY FLATS
 

The verbatim transcript of the Working 


Group Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health held telephonically on January 9, 


2007. 

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 6 

C O N T E N T S
 

January 9, 2007 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 


DR. LEWIS WADE, DFO 


OTHER RADIONUCLIDES 16 


COMPLETENESS OF DATA 45 


D AND D PERIOD 57 


LOGBOOK ANALYSIS 62 


DATA INTEGRITY AND SAFETY CONCERNS 70 


1969 DATA GAP 81 


NEUTRON ITEMS 96 


SUPER S 102 


MATRIX UPDATE 109 


SC&A FINAL REPORT 115 


COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 125 

3 

TRANSCRIPT LEGEND
 

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 


material is reproduced as read or spoken. 


In the following transcript: a dash (--) indicates 


an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 


sentence. An ellipsis (. . .) indicates halting speech 


or an unfinished sentence in dialogue or omission(s) of 


word(s) when reading written material. 


-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 


of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 


reported. 


-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 


the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 


available. 


-- "uh-huh" represents an affirmative response, and 


"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 


-- "*" denotes a spelling based on phonetics, 


without reference available. 


-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 


failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

 

 

 

4

 P A R T I C I P A N T S 


(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 


BOARD MEMBERS
 

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D. 


Senior Science Advisor 


National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 


Washington, DC 


MEMBERSHIP
 

GIBSON, Michael H. 


President 


Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 


Local 5-4200 


Miamisburg, Ohio 


GRIFFON, Mark A. 


President 


Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 


Salem, New Hampshire 


MUNN, Wanda I. 


Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 


Richland, Washington 


PRESLEY, Robert W. 


Special Projects Engineer 


BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 


Clinton, Tennessee 

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IDENTIFIED PARTICIPANTS
 

ALBERG, JEANETTE, SEN. ALLARD 


BAKER, STEVE, ORAU 


BARKER, KAY, ANWAG 


BARRIE, TERRIE, ANWAG 


BEHLING, HANS, SC&A 


BRACKETT, LIZ, ORAU 


BROEHM, JASON, CDC WASHINGTON 


BUCHANAN, RON, SC&A 


CHEW, MEL, ORAU 


ELLIOTT, LARRY, NIOSH 


FALK, ROGER, ORAU 


FITZGERALD, JOE, SC&A 


FIX, JACK, ORAU 


HOFF, JENNIFER, ORAU 


HOMOKI-TITUS, LIZ, HHS 


HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 


JESSEN, KARIN, ORAUT 


LIPSZTEIN, JOYCE, SC&A 


LITTLE, CRAIG, ORAU 


LOPEZ, THERESA, ORAU 


MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 


MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 


MCFEE, MATT, ORAU 


NETON, JIM, NIOSH 


POTTER, GENE, ORAU 


RICH, BRYCE, ORAU 


ROBERTSON-DEMERS, KATHY, SC&A 


SCHOFIELD, PHILLIP, FUTURE ABRWH MEMBER 


SHARFI, MUTTY, ORAU 


SHIELDS, LASHAWN, NIOSH 


SMITH, MATTHEW, ORAU 


STAUDT, DAVID, CDC 


ULSH, BRANT, NIOSH 

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P R O C E E D I N G S


 (10:30 a.m.) 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS
 

DR. LEWIS WADE, DFO
 

 DR. WADE: The work group is here. Are 


there any other Board members on the call 


other than the work group members? Any other 


Board members on the call? 


MR. SCHOFIELD: Phillip Schofield here. I’m 


not officially yet but --


DR. WADE: Okay, well, welcome. No, you’re 


not a Board member at this point, but we’re 


pleased to have you with us and thank you for 


making the effort. As I’m sure most know, 


Phillip will be joining us as soon as we can 


get the necessary paperwork in place. 


MS. MUNN: It will be nice to have someone 


from Los Alamos. Thank you, Phil. 


DR. WADE: We look forward to overworking 


you. So thank you for joining us and again 


thank you for your willingness to serve. This 


is as well-intentioned and as productive a 


Board as I’ve ever been involved with, and I 

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know you’ll enjoy the task and the people that 


you undertake the task with. 


MR. SCHOFIELD: That’s good. Glad to hear 


that. 


MR. PRESLEY: Thanks, Phillip. This is Bob 


Presley. What group do you work with out 


there? 


MR. SCHOFIELD: I’m no longer with the lab. 


I’m actually on disability. I was with NMT 


Division out of 55. 


MR. PRESLEY: Okay, that TA-55? 


MR. SCHOFIELD: Right. 


MR. PRESLEY: Because I worked up on the 


hill at this 55 and the TA-1 and 18 for about 


16 years as a resident from Y-12 there 


sometimes. 


DR. WADE: Mark, if you’re ready, maybe we 


can begin with the some introduction. So we 


know that the work group is here and so what 


is with us as well is an incoming Board 


member, and no other Board members have 


identified themselves. So there is no issue 


with quorum. 


I guess I would ask that we go through 


our normal sort of introduction which would be 

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members of the NIOSH or ORAU team to identify 


themselves, and when they do to identify any 


conflicts that they have relative to Rocky 


Flats. And then SC&A team, then I would ask 


other federal employees who are on the call by 


virtue of their federal employment to identify 


themselves. I’d ask for workers, worker reps, 


members of Congress or their representatives 


to identify themselves, and anyone else who 


would like to identify themselves. 


Again, to start, this is a call of the 


working group of the Advisory Board dealing 


with issues related to Rocky Flats, both an 


opened SEC petition as well as a site profile 


review. And the group is very ably chaired by 


Mark Griffon, and its members are Robert 


Presley, Wanda Munn and Mike Gibson. So with 


that I would ask the NIOSH/ORAU team to 


identify themselves and conflicts. 


DR. ULSH: This is Brant Ulsh with NIOSH, 


and I have no conflicts. 


DR. NETON: Jim Neton with NIOSH, no 


conflicts. 


MR. LITTLE: Craig Little with the ORAU 


team, no conflicts. 

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MR. SHARFI: Mutty Sharfi, the ORAU team, no 

conflicts. 

MS. JESSEN: Karin Jessen with the ORAU 

team. I have no personal conflicts. 


MS. BRACKETT: Liz Brackett with the ORAU 


team. I have no conflicts. 


MR. FALK: And this is Roger Falk, and, yes, 


I do have conflicts. 


MR. McFEE: Matt McFee with the ORAU team. 


I have no conflicts. 


MR. CHEW: Mel Chew, ORAU team, no 


conflicts. 


MR. RICH: Bryce Rich, ORAU team. I have a 


conflict. 


MR. POTTER: Gene Potter, ORAU team, 


conflicted. 


MR. FIX: Jack Fix, ORAU team, no conflicts. 


MR. SMITH: And Matt Smith, ORAU team, no 


conflicts. 


MS. HOFF: And Jennifer Hoff, ORAU team, no 


personal conflicts. 


MR. BAKER: Steve Baker, ORAU team, I am 


conflicted. 


DR. WADE: Anyone else from the NIOSH/ORAU 


team? 

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MS. LOPEZ: Theresa Lopez, ORAU team, no 


conflicts. 


DR. WADE: Anyone else? 


 (no response) 


DR. WADE: Okay, well how about SC&A and 


their team? 


DR. MAURO: Yes, this is John Mauro from 


SC&A, no conflicts. 


DR. WADE: Welcome, John. 


MR. FITZGERALD: Joe Fitzgerald, SC&A, no 


conflicts. 


DR. WADE: Welcome, Joe. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Arjun Makhijani, SC&A, no 


conflicts. 


DR. BEHLING: Hans Behling, SC&A, no 


conflicts. 


DR. LIPSZTEIN: Joyce Lipsztein, SC&A, no 


conflicts. 


MS. ROBERTSON-DeMERS: Kathy Robertson-


DeMers, no conflicts. 


DR. WADE: Someone just turned on a piece of 


machinery. There’s a printer in the 


background somewhere. Someone has a printer 


on, needs to mute their phone. 


MS. MUNN: I’m amazed you can identify that 

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as a printer. 


MR. BUCHANAN: This is Ron Buchanan, SC&A, 


no conflicts. 


DR. WADE: Anyone else from the team? 


(no response) 


DR. WADE: This might be a good time for a 


little bit of discussion of phone etiquette. 


I mean, these calls are terribly important to 


the working group being able to do their 


business, but they can only succeed if all of 


us involved maintain proper phone etiquette. 


And that would be if you’re not speaking, 


mute. If you are speaking, try and do it into 


a handset. 


Be mindful of the fact that small 


noises in your background become very 


distracting to the people on the call. So you 


need to be mindful of that. Right now we’ve 


got some printer issue somewhere, and it comes 


and goes. So I would ask that person to think 


about that and mute their phone. 


I would ask other federal employees 


who are on the call by virtue of their 


employment to identify. 


MS. HOWELL: This is Emily Howell with HHS. 

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DR. WADE: Welcome, Emily. 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: This is Liz Homoki-Titus 


with HHS. 


DR. WADE: Hi, Liz. 


MR. KOTSCH: Jeff Kotsch, Department of 


Labor. 


MR. BROEHM: Jason Broehm, CDC, Washington 


office. 


DR. WADE: Welcome. 


MS. SHIELDS: LaShawn Shields, NIOSH. 


DR. WADE: Hello, LaShawn. 


MR. STAUDT: David Staudt with CDC. 


DR. WADE: Any other federal employees who 


are on the call by virtue of their employment? 


 (no response) 


DR. WADE: Workers, petitioners, their 


representatives, members of Congress or staff? 


MS. ALBERG: I’m Jeanette Alberg with 


Senator Wayne Allard’s office. 


DR. WADE: Welcome. Thank you for joining 


us. 


MS. BARRIE: Terry Barrie with ANWAG. 


DR. WADE: Hi, Terry, how are you? 


MS. BARRIE: Fine, thanks. 


MS. BARKER: Kay Barker with ANWAG. 

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DR. WADE: Any others who wish to be 


identified as being on the call, for the 


record? 


(no response) 


DR. WADE: And Ray, you’re with us and up 


and ready to go I assume? 


THE COURT REPORTER: Yes, sir, I’m here. 


I’m in my home office on my phone with a 


yelping Chihuahua, so I’m on mute. 


DR. WADE: Well, thank you. 


Mark, it’s back to you. I know that 


you’ve distributed some materials and you can 


do what you will with the rest of the time. 


MR. GIBSON: This is Mike. Could I ask a 


question first? 


DR. WADE: Surely. 


MR. GIBSON: Again, for the record, could we 


just explain the difference between no 


conflict, personal conflict and conflicted and 


what participation these people are allowed to 


participate in this, just like we do in our 


Advisory Board meetings? 


DR. WADE: Sure, I can take a stab at that, 


Mike. 


You know, not to get into all the 

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legalese of it, but I think we appreciate the 


fact that people with knowledge need to be 


heard. And if people have experience they 


share, we would like to hear that. But we’d 


like everyone to be able to identify that the 


people might be speaking with knowledge who 


might also bring bias to the table. And 


therefore, we’d like everyone to identify 


whether or not they have a personal conflict. 


We won’t silence them if they profess 


that conflict, but it’s important that 


everyone know that what they are saying needs 


to be understood in light of the fact that 


they do have a conflict. We wouldn’t want the 


people who have a conflict being principal 


authors or owners of the documents that we 


speak to. There’d be a prohibition against 


that, but again, their expertise as a site 


expert can be heard on the call and would not 


limit that. 


Relative to organizational conflicts, 


there again there are issues where there are 


conflicts and there needs to be organizational 


remedies put in place. I don’t think that is 


as affecting of these discussions as are the 

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personal conflicts. So again, we want 


everyone to identify whether or not they’re 


conflicted. We’ll not silence their voice, 


but their voice needs to be heard with that in 


mind. 


MR. GIBSON: Okay, thank you. 


MR. GRIFFON: I think we’re ready, Lew. I 


sent out an agenda, a very brief agenda, but 


the primary focus, I think, is the first 


several items which we’ve been, I think this 


is down to our primary action items that 


remain. And we’ve been going through this 


list in the last few meetings I believe. 


The November 6th meeting I sent out a 


summary of these action items just so that we 


didn’t have to deal with the entire matrix 


again. And then we did an update in Chicago 


on this. 


MS. MUNN: I’m assuming it’s your intention 


to go through that in the same general order 


that --


MR. GRIFFON: Yes, yeah, with one exception. 


NIOSH has requested that we actually start off 


with the other radionuclides because of some 


of their, I think they’ve got some people that 

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have to leave the call a little early. So if 


that’s agreeable with everybody, I think we 


just move, start with 1-B and then go back in 


order on these items. 


OTHER RADIONUCLIDES
 

The other radionuclides and primarily 


I think this discussion is going to revolve 


around thorium at this point. 


MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


MR. GRIFFON: But I’ll turn this over to 


maybe Joe or Brant. I’m not sure who wants to 


initiate the discussion. 


MR. FITZGERALD: This is Joe Fitzgerald, 


good morning. Let me just pick up on a little 


bit of history for those who haven’t been 


following this as closely as we have. In both 


site profiles and SEC evaluations we focus on 


whether or not all sources of occupational 


radiation have been identified. And we look 


at in particular at secondary nuclides, 


radioactive sources that may have been handled 


at a particular site in a secondary vein, 


meaning not necessarily the primary mission of 


the site. 


And for Rocky Flats in the site 

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profile we did certainly look at some of these 


secondary nuclides like curium and thorium and 


sort of question the conclusions that were in 


the site profile that carry forward to the SEC 


evaluation where they were seen as not 


significant to internal dose potential. And 


we, frankly, just wanted to see more 


substantiation on that conclusion. And that’s 


been the process that we’ve been going through 


is trying to, with NIOSH, validate that, even 


though these are secondary elements, and we 


agree that they certainly were going to rise 


to the significance of plutonium and uranium 


at the site, to more or less confirm the 


quantity and the level of handling at the 


site. And where this back and forth was left 


last was NIOSH did provide, toward the end of 


December, I think it was December 27th , a 


fairly comprehensive compendium of their 


research on the one remaining issue which is 


thorium at the site. And we have certainly 


over the last couple of weeks taken a good 


look at that and looked at other sources. And 


before I turn it over to Arjun let me clarify 


though that as Mark indicated, we have closed 

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out any SEC issues related to americium and 


other nuclides. Thorium is the remaining 


question. So Arjun, do you want to, frankly, 


bring us up to date on that? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, sure. Did NIOSH want 


to say something or was it simply that people 


have to leave early and we should present our 


view? 


DR. ULSH: Arjun, this is Brant. It’s Bryce 


Rich that has to leave in about 15 minutes. 


So I guess maybe if you could front load your 


remarks if there’s anything that you need from 


Bryce if you could maybe get to those first. 


One administrative issue though, Larry 


Elliott just visited my office and said he’s 


trying to dial in but hasn’t been successful 


yet because the phone lines are busy. 


So, Lew, there might be an issue with 


some people who want to participate in the 


call and can’t get through. 


DR. WADE: Okay, thank you. 


MR. ELLIOTT: I did just make it on. This 


is Larry Elliott, after several tries. 


DR. ULSH: Sorry, go ahead, Arjun. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Thank you, Brant. 

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Basically, our review of what you sent 


on December 27th falls into three categories. 


And to give you the bottom line, the first 


category’s the source term. We noted that in 


your most recent review you have two new 


source term. One is the 1960 processing of 


three 80 kilogram ingots which are in total 


being 240 kilograms. It’s the largest single 


annual source term identified today. And we 


were somewhat surprised that there was a new 


source term at this stage. 


And then the other source term that 


was identified was not pure thorium but from 


NIOSH’s interviews regarding the Dow Madison 


plant following questions that had been raised 


about that by the Dow Madison petitioners. 


That there were some up to three percent 


thorium alloy alloyed with non-radioactive 


magnesium that was apparently sent from Dow 


Madison to Rocky Flats. 


So there were no quantitative details 


on what was done with that. Now three percent 


thorium, having higher dose conversion 


factors, of course, could have, if the 


quantities and depending on the quantities and 

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processing, could have implications for dose 


and may not have implications for dose. But 


there were no details provided as to the 


amounts and what was done with this magnesium 


alloyed with thorium. 


So there were two new source terms and 


for a number of reasons including the fact 


that there was a new corporation, W.R. Grace 


not identified so far, that had sent the ingot 


to another new corporation, Dow Madison not 


identified so far, that it sent an alloy. 


More substantial processing than had been done 


before, which was the tanning and rolling of 


the thorium ingot, so Rocky Flats apparently 


had the capability to do that. 


We did agree with NIOSH that this had 


been done in a short period of time, 25 hours, 


and also agreed that that ingot operation 


seemed to be well documented and there were 


concentration data. One of the bottom lines 


in relation to the new source term was that it 


didn’t seem, there didn’t seem to be an issue 


with dose reconstruction for that operation, 


the new operation that was identified. 


A need arose after discovering a new 

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source term at this stage after, more than a 


year after we raised it in the TBD review, and 


while we don’t, we’re not aware of any other 


source terms, we’re just not comfortable that 


everything’s been identified so far. And to 


reiterate, we’re not aware that there is 


anything out there, but we’re made 


uncomfortable by the fact that there were two 


new source terms at this stage. 


DR. ULSH: Perhaps I can speak to that --


DR. MAKHIJANI: One of them we don’t know, 


we don’t have any quantitative details. 


That’s the bottom line. 


DR. ULSH: Okay, perhaps I could speak to 


that. The first source term that you 


mentioned, the operation with the thorium 


ingots, that is not a new source term at all. 


It was mentioned in the first line of Cabel 


(ph), his write-up, including the quantity. I 


think it was 249 kilograms. That is not new. 


What is new is the level of detail 


that we’ve provided because of the continuing 


questions that have arisen in the working 


group meetings. So we’ve gone back and 


obtained that report by Calabra that as you 

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mentioned gives a very detailed account of 


that. So that’s not new. 


Now the second item that you 


mentioned, the Dow Madison, yeah, you’ve 


accurately represented what the workers told 


Dow Madison’s petitioner, and that is that 


they sent quantities of magnesium alloy of 


which up to three percent, one-to-two-to-three 


percent might be thorium as an alloying agent. 


Now the reason that that doesn’t show up on 


the MBA ledgers or any of the other documents 


that we have that relate to source terms 


because that quantity is so, that 


concentration is so low that it wouldn’t even 


be considered a radioactive material for 


purposes of tracking it. 


We have very good confidence that any 


shipments of pure thorium, certainly that’s a 


radioactive material and that would have been 


tracked in the MBA ledgers. But the 


radioactivity of a magnesium alloy that 


contains a small quantity of thorium as an 


alloying agent would be, I would say, not even 


distinguishable from background. But I’ll let 


Bryce perhaps chime in on that. 

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MR. RICH: Well, I agree, Brant. 


DR. ULSH: But I don’t think that we would 


agree with the characterization of we’ve just 


identified some new source terms. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, just to clarify what I 


meant by that term, we do agree with NIOSH 


that the original October paper you gave us 


saying that the maximum stocks were on the 


order of 250 kilograms, that has been verified 


and documented, and we agree with that. And 


we’ve never had a dispute or difference or 


argument about that. The new thing that has 


been identified is the new processing and the 


fact that three ingots came from W.R. Grace 


and Company that were canned and rolled at 


Rocky Flats. And to my understanding that is 


new information. 


DR. ULSH: Well, we might be talking 


semantics. It is certainly true that new 


information that provides additional levels of 


detail has been provided recently. That is 


certainly true. But --


DR. MAKHIJANI: But in regard to the 


processing and the operations as a concern, 


the doses, we don’t have any new information 

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on maximum stocks held by Rocky Flats. I 


agree with that. Just so we get past the 


semantic issues. And at this stage we don’t 


have a problem with your ability to calculate 


doses from ingot rolling because it appears to 


have been well documented. So we’re not 


raising an issue about that. 


The issue that we’re raising is that 


new activities were identified and a new, one 


of which was quite substantial, and I would 


not agree that a three percent thorium, while 


you may not be able to measure the 


radioactivity, you know, as very large in 


terms of its specific activities, but curies 


per gram, that would certainly be quite small. 


But until we know the quantities of magnesium 


and what was done with them, I don’t believe 


that you can assert that it was dosimetrically 


small because if you had three percent thorium 


and magnesium that became airborne in the 


course of, say, processing it or lining, well, 


I don’t know what could have been done with it 


so I don’t want to speculate. 


But if it was processed in a way that 


became airborne with three percent thorium and 

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97 percent magnesium, its dosimetric 


implications for bone dose would be like 


having a hundred percent uranium. So I cannot 


agree that until we know what was done with it 


that it’s dosimetrically insignificant even 


though I would agree that it’s very low 


specific activity. 


DR. ULSH: Well, I don’t know. We might 


have to agree to disagree on that at this 


point. I mean, we calculated dose estimates 


from working with pure thorium metal at Rocky 


Flats. And I would certainly say that that 


would be the primary operation that you would 


be concerned about, but I don’t know. 


Bryce, do you have any thoughts on 


that? 


MR. RICH: Nothing definitive. The only 


issue is that we really do have no records of 


the magnesium-thorium blend or any detail of 


what the receipt of (unintelligible). 


MR. CHEW: This is Mel. I’d just like to 


make a comment that normal welding rods 


contain about two percent thorium as a 


comparison for perspective here, and we 


certainly don’t document welding rods as they 

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come in. A lot of welding was done anywhere 


all over the entire industry here. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: In the nuclear weapons 


industry or generally in industry? 


MR. CHEW: Generally in industry. 


MR. GRIFFON: Brant, this is Mark. I was 


just wondering, and I might be a little behind 


on this issue. But do you know or is there 


any information on the quantity, how much of 


this alloy was sent according to those 


interviews? 


DR. ULSH: The only information I’m aware of 


at this point, Mark, is the testimony that the 


workers provided, that the Dow Madison workers 


provided to Dr. McKeel. And they 


characterized it as pretty large quantities. 


They were saying truckloads of magnesium 


alloy. So I mean, and I have no other 


independent information that would speak to 


it. 


MR. GRIFFON: And from the Rocky side we’re 


not clear that it was even received, and, if 


so, what they would have done with it or how 


they would have processed it. 


DR. ULSH: I have no information from the 

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Rocky side. That’s correct, Mark. 


MR. GRIFFON: I don’t know what else to say 


about that, Arjun. If we, at this point I’m 


not sure --


DR. MAKHIJANI: I also don’t know. I mean, 


I’m not aware of the thorium in the welding 


generally in industry, but I don’t think that 


that is particularly relevant in this 


situation. If it was used in Rocky Flats and 


if it became airborne in significant 


quantities, I can say that if you do the 


numbers and compare it to uranium, for some 


organs three percent thorium with 97 percent 


non-radioactive dust in mass loadings would 


produce the same dose to the bone surface as a 


hundred percent uranium dust. 


So I just, I guess, I at least feel 


uncomfortable in dismissing it or even 


comparing it to the pure thorium. Because the 


amount of dust that’s airborne depends on what 


you do with it, and we don’t have any 


information. So I don’t know how to come to 


any conclusion one way or another in the 


absence of information. 


MR. GIBSON: This is Mike. Can I ask a 

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question? If the folks that have previously 


(unintelligible) at Rocky that are on the line 


don’t have any data about the amount of this 


material that was delivered or processed, are 


we discounting what the workers said or are we 


taking that into account? My --


DR. ULSH: On the NIOSH side we’re certainly 


not discounting what the workers said. 


MR. GIBSON: Are we including that as far as 


say worst case, upper bounds on the dose 


reconstructions? 


MS. MUNN: I thought we were basing this 


entire verification on what workers said, are 


we not? 


DR. ULSH: Let me just, I don’t know that I 


can answer your question directly, Mike. Let 


me tell you what we’ve done and maybe that 


will answer it. The issue that arose 


originally with the Dow Madison question was 


were they shipping large quantities of thorium 


metal to Rocky Flats. And I think a lot of 


the back and forth dealt with the failure to 


make a distinction between pure thorium metal 


and magnesium alloys that contain small 


quantities of thorium. There’s certainly no 

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evidence that pure thorium metal went back and 


forth. 


And when you look at the transcripts 


that the Dow workers provided, they were 


clearly talking about magnesium alloy. So, I 


mean, I don’t have any independent information 


that would speak to whether or not magnesium 


alloy was shipped to Rocky from Dow. It 


sounds plausible to me. You know, I have no 


reason to doubt it. So I would certainly not 


discount what they’re saying. 


With regard to the former Rocky 


workers, the question that we posed to them 


was were they aware of significant quantities 


of thorium metals. And now we’re talking 


about thorium metal because that’s clearly a 


radioactive material, and clearly there’s no 


evidence that shipments of thorium metal came 


into Rocky Flats. 


Now magnesium alloy would have been 


considered a non-radioactive material, and so 


it would not have received the same degree of 


scrutiny as pure thorium coming in. So I 


don’t, there’s nothing that the workers have 


said that I’m saying is definitely not true 

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regarding this issue. It sounds plausible to 


me. 


MR. GIBSON: No, I’m not saying that, but, 


Arjun, unless I was mistaken, weren’t you 


asking that the workers identified either 


large amounts of this stuff came in the plant? 


And that was the basis of my question, has 


this been considered into an upper bound on a 


best estimate, worst case scenario dose 


exposure? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Mike, as I understand it, 


NIOSH did take into account what the Dow 


Madison workers said and reported on the 


magnesium-thorium alloy being shipped to Rocky 


Flats. Now they don’t have any information on 


the quantities and neither do we. So they 


haven’t made any estimates. We don’t know 


what was done with it so there’s no further 


information on that. But NIOSH did report 


what was said by the workers and took it into 


account in their December report, if that’s 


the particular thing you’re asking about. 


MS. MUNN: The interviews with the folks in 


Rocky Flats were pretty clear about the 


limited nature of the work that was done with 

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that material, were they not? My reading of 


that was that they were universal in their 


agreement that the amount of activity that 


would involve those materials was really very 


small. 


DR. ULSH: That dealt with pure thorium 


metal. That didn’t deal with magnesium alloy. 


So you shouldn’t draw any conclusions at all 


from the Rocky workers’ testimony about 


magnesium alloy. 


MS. MUNN: Yes, I realize that. I realize 


that. But I also got the impression that 


there was not a feeling that, well, perhaps I 


read something in there that I shouldn’t have. 


I had the impression that they were unaware of 


any major activities that involved the 


magnesium alloy, but I’ll go back and read it 


again. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Ms. Munn, on the point that 


thorium was a new radionuclide in terms of 


quantities and processing, I don’t, SC&A and 


NIOSH are in agreement in that the maximum 


amount that was stored at any one time was 


about 250 kilograms. We’re also in agreement 


with that. 

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MS. MUNN: Yes, I think the record was 


fairly clear on that. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: That’s very well documented 


so there’s no difference of opinion or 


argument about that. 


MS. MUNN: Yeah, I guess somehow, perhaps I 


skimmed that part too quickly. I had the 


impression that at one juncture we, that had 


been addressed in a very vague manner, but 


perhaps I’m wrong. I’ll go back and read it. 


MR. GRIFFON: It’s just a different 


material, mixed alloy. 


MS. MUNN: Yeah, I understand that. 


MR. CHEW: Brant, this is Mel. Can I 


suggest, propose a path forward on this issue 


about the thorium and the magnesium? We could 


go back and pull and talk to some of the key 


Rocky Flats operational people and scientists 


to see how much magnesium alloy there was and 


what was done with it. 


DR. ULSH: We could, but I guess I would 


like maybe a feeling from the working group, I 


mean, given what we know and what we don’t 


know, is this an issue that you want us to 


pursue further, the use of this magnesium 

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alloy? 


MR. GRIFFON: My sense is if we’re not sure 


anything about magnitude, it may be worth, and 


this is something that you can do on a phone 


interview with a few people. 


DR. ULSH: I’m pretty good at that, Mark. 


MR. GRIFFON: I think it would at least be 


helpful to say, you know, we concur. It did 


happen, but here’s what we did with it or, you 


know, that may be able to close this issue. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: We could get some magnitude 


on it. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, perhaps. 


MR. RICH: It may be possible to at least 


determine if it was construction material or a 


small parts manufacturer or as Arjun 


indicated, it makes a difference whether it 


was machining material or whether it was 


construction material. If they’re shipping it 


in by the truckload, it could very well have 


been a non-issue from the standpoint, just a 


simple putting in place and building 


something. 


MR. PRESLEY: This is Bob Presley. Do we 


have any idea of the amount other than just 

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somebody saying that it was truckloads? 


MR. GRIFFON: No, we don’t. 


MR. RICH: There are no, we haven’t been 


able to find any inventory or shipping records 


to --


MR. CHEW: In our polling of the Rocky Flats 


people we didn’t really ask that specific 


question, and I know magnesium is an 


interesting material because, you know, you’ve 


got to worry about the safety of handling 


magnesium. 


I would imagine that if we polled 


clearly some of the key people at Rocky Flats 


and asked them what was magnesium used for and 


how much material, I think though we probably 


can get our arms around this. So I think this 


is certainly a worthwhile attempt here. 


MR. PRESLEY: This is Bob Presley again. I 


think we ought to let Mel do that, but I 


wouldn’t spend a whole lot of time on it. 


MR. GRIFFON: I agree. This has to be, 


that’s what I was saying, some follow up. 


Yeah, that’d be great. 


MR. CHEW: Do you agree with him because you 


need to tell me to do that here. 

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DR. ULSH: Mel, do it. 


MS. MUNN: It seems unlikely to me that 


although it might not be considered 


radioactive material, it’s unlikely that a 


hazardous material like the magnesium wouldn’t 


have attracted some (unintelligible). 


MR. GRIFFON: That’s true. 


MR. CHEW: I would be concerned with it, 


just to make sure knowing where it is just 


from the (unintelligible) standpoint. 


MS. MUNN: Yeah, right. 


MR. GRIFFON: Can I ask one more thing on 


source term before we move off of source term? 


In this thorium document, I think it’s 1976, 


there was a mention of thorium used in place 


of plutonium or uranium for sort of mock-up 


assemblies. And it notes that -- do you 


recall this -- I mean --


DR. ULSH: Yes, Mark, I recall it. 


MR. GRIFFON: And it’s noted here that 


usually, I believe these were the quantities 


that fell under the mass balance sort of 


inventory. 


DR. ULSH: Yes, that’s true, Mark. 


MR. GRIFFON: Is that true? 

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DR. ULSH: Yeah. 


MR. GRIFFON: The only thing that I was 


wondering is do we have any sense of the 


magnitude of this use in the early years 


because this memo says, you know, at the time 


of the memo it would have been like seven 


kilograms of thorium but no large quantities 


at all. But it says prior to that it says 


that in the early years this operation 


occurred frequently in the past. And I didn’t 


know if it was, you know, if anybody had any 


sense of was this done a lot more in the past. 


Would this be a significant source term? 


MR. RICH: Mark, this is Bryce Rich. There 


was a standard operating procedure for 


inventory control was that they would round up 


500-gram quantities. If the quantities were 


less than 500 grams they would not show up in 


the inventory. If they were 501 grams they 


showed up as a kilogram. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay, so you’re fairly 


confident that it would have been in the 


inventories. 


MR. RICH: That’s right. 


MR. GRIFFON: Because it says each 

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individual use is too small for record keeping 


but it would have been aggregated in the 


inventory you’re saying. 


DR. ULSH: Mark, I recall that there was a 


statement in our report says this is in a form 


that would not present an exposure hazard. 


And also, the operations, I mean the handling 


of this material. This is the stuff that, 


yes, before when you take it out of a box and 


you put it in your model. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay, the way it was written I 


wasn’t sure if this would have been in that 


mass balance inventory. Now, I knew it had 


been discussed before, but I just wanted to --


MR. RICH: Well, they considered it was in 


the mass balance and it was cumulative and 


documented on that rounding basis. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay, thank you. I think that 


clarifies that. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Could I ask Brant something 


about that now? Did you say that this was 


taken out of a box (unintelligible) less than 


500 grams? I didn’t understand that less than 


500 grams were operations like that. 


DR. ULSH: I think maybe Bryce can answer 

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that. 


MR. RICH: We don’t know a lot about that 


other than the fact that parts were small, 


less than 500 gram quantities, and a lot of 


those parts were delivered as full parts from 


Y-12. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: But the 1976 thorium use 


document has identified several different 


specific uses of the minor quantities that 


then add up to something more than that. And 


as I understood, I just want to understand the 


response to Mark’s question more clearly. So 


suppose there were 15 activities involving 400 


grams each, then that would add up to six 


kilograms. And that six kilograms would be 


logged in the total mass balance for that year 


but the 400 grams will not show up anywhere or 


would that six kilograms not appear in the 


mass balance anywhere at all? 


MR. RICH: It would appear in the mass 

balance. 

MR. CHEW: If it was 400 grams, it would 

have showed up as a kilogram. 


MR. RICH: If it was 400 grams, it would not 


show up in the inventory, but cumulatively 

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they would account all of those units to go, 


as Arjun’s indicated, that there are 15 400 


grams quantity so it would show up on the 


inventory. 


MR. GRIFFON: So they sort of did a 


cumulation site building or something or 


another by area. And if you had more than 500 


grams in an area, then it would trigger the 


thing. 


MR. RICH: And then it would show up as a 


kilogram. 


MR. GRIFFON: Arjun, is that --


DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay, yeah. 


DR. ULSH: Okay, I think maybe if I can take 


a stab at summarizing this --


MR. RICH: Could I interrupt because I 


really have to leave now. 


DR. ULSH: Thank you, Bryce. 


There’s a remaining question about the 


magnesium alloys and Mel is going to, Mel and 


Bryce Rich, are going to do some phone calls 


to try to find out some information about 


that. Other than that I think I heard Arjun 


say that you’re comfortable with what we could 


calculate dose from the ingot operation in 

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1960 I think it was. 


You see other remaining issues on 


thorium other than the magnesium alloy issue? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: We didn’t cover the dose 


issues yet. And some new things showing up at 


this stage that raise some questions of what 


else might be out there. But as I said, we 


don’t have any evidence that there’s anything 


else. And we do agree that the maximum amount 


of thorium is in stock, is well documented. 


So as regards the dose side of things 


other than the ingots, we looked at the 


December 27th report and the comparison with 


the machining and grinding and the fact that 


the machining and grinding for bone surface 


actually showed up at several hundred times 


the previously calculated dose. 


I did understand that the machining 


and grinding would be regarded as much greater 


overestimates as you presented, but it did not 


demonstrate that the (unintelligible) 1400 was 


a bounding dose. On the contrary, it 


demonstrated to the contrary. NIOSH stated 


that the amount of time for the light 


machining work with six kilogram pieces was 

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41 

very short, and so the machining phase should 


be regarded as overestimate for some of that. 


But I didn’t see that. I couldn’t 


agree with that because in the machining 


estimates that short amount of time already 


taken into account because it’s considered as 


a ten-hour operation with a specified air 


concentration. So I don’t think the time 


factor is a significant argument, and in our 


interpretation, the way we’ve reviewed it so 


far, it seems that the comparison that Jim 


Neton initially suggested at the November 6th
 

working group meeting resulted in showing that 


1400 which is not a conservatively bounding 


estimate. 


And so that then turned into a problem 


for the other application of (unintelligible) 


1400 for the thorium strikes as well. But to 


complete that the thorium strike intake 


estimate was given as one becquerel about, and 


the argument was made that if it had been a 


hundred, then the aligned would have deducted 


it. Even accepting that, that doesn’t show 


that one is bounding in some way so I didn’t 


understand the logic of that particular 

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argument. 


It could be two or four or ten, and 


given that there isn’t an operational 


demonstration of the conservatism of one 


becquerel intake, we’re again in the position 


of questioning whether new reg 1400 is the 


appropriate way to do this. We’re not saying 


that these doses can’t be calculated, and that 


therefore, we are convinced that this is an 


SEC issue; SC&A is not in that position. 


We’re just saying that new reg 1400 is not the 


appropriate method to do it from what NIOSH 


has demonstrated so far. 


DR. ULSH: I hesitate to get too much into 


detail because --


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I was going to -- can I 


interject for one second, Brant, I’m sorry. 


Just a process notion here because I really 


want to try to be done by 2:00, and I’m 


thinking that this issue in particular and 


maybe follow up on the thorium source term as 


well or magnesium-thorium alloy source term, 


it might be useful to have a technical call 


like next week or something where we can have 


a more in-depth discussion on this particular 

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issue and the model, the new reg 1400 approach 


to flesh this one out. Is that something, I 


mean, I don’t want to cut it off completely, 


but maybe we can save the technical details 


for a phone call next week and not a work 


group call, but just NIOSH/SC&A call to sort 


of hash this one out a little further. 


DR. ULSH: That’s fine from our end, Mark. 


MR. GRIFFON: Is that okay, is that making 


sense, Joe, Arjun? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, that’s fine with me. 


Yeah, I think actually it would be better, and 


then we can keep notes and --


MR. GRIFFON: I should have said this up 


front, but mainly I want today to be kind of 


an update. Where are we at with different 


actions? Whose court is the ball in now? And 


what’s the next step forward? But I think now 


we have a, for thorium, you know, we have the 


one follow up that Mel offered on the thorium-


magnesium source term. I think we need to 


maybe talk about, we can e-mail and get a 


technical call sometime next week maybe to do 


a follow up on the TR method using new reg 


1400 if that’s agreeable. 

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DR. ULSH: That’s agreeable here, Mark. Do 


you want me to take the, I’ll take the lead 


and propose the time or whatever and call 


everyone. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Sorry, Mark, my 


understanding of my charter from Joe was to 


provide the bottom line of where we are --


MR. GRIFFON: Oh, no, no, that’s okay. I’m 


just looking at how, it took us almost an hour 


to get through the first item, and I’m just, 


as usual, we -- is that all right, Brant? I 


didn’t want to cut your comments off 


completely if you had a --


DR. ULSH: No, actually, I was just going to 


say that it might be better to postpone the 


detailed discussions for when Bryce is 


available, so that’s fine with me. 


So you’ll hear from me. I’ll propose 


times or whatever and call everybody. 


MR. GRIFFON: Is there anything more on 


other radionuclides, thorium? 


DR. ULSH: Joe mentioned, and I was going to 


get to this, too, Mark. In your summary of 


action items, the one that goes into a little 


bit more detail than the agenda, action item, 

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okay, number two is other radionuclides and 


under that point four what it currently says 


here, Mark, is that SC&A will further review 


information provided by NIOSH regarding 


neptunium and curium. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yes, and in my matrix that I 


sent out I think I indicated -- I know it just 


came last night. I tried to update the matrix 


-- but my understanding from the last meeting 


was that SC&A had completed that, and they 


were comfortable with that. 


DR. ULSH: Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. 


MR. GRIFFON: I have complete on that, yes. 


All right, anything else on our agenda 


on the thorium? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: No. 


MR. GRIFFON: So we’ll save it for next 


week’s technical phone call. 


COMPLETENESS OF DATA
 

I think we should go back to the first 


item, the data completeness. And Joe, maybe 


I’ll let you start off. I think this kind of 


is in SC&A’s court right now. 


MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, and in terms of 


background basically it became more apparent 

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that NIOSH was relying on the claimant file, 


the DOE original data, as compared with HIS-20 


because of some -- HIS-20’s an electronic 


database –- I mean it’s in that database. We 


initiated sampling of that claimant file just 


to assure ourselves of the completeness of 


that file, given the fact that that would, in 


fact, be the basis for dose estimation. 


And as we discussed in the last month 


or two, we did initially find some troublesome 


gaps in that data, and the discussion was the 


extent of those gaps and how widespread they 


were. And I think where we left it was to 


proceed with the sampling, detailed sampling 


exercise that SC&A would do in coordination 


with NIOSH in terms of identifying different 


groups. 


And I think we’ve accomplished that, 


and I’ll just sort of again defer to Arjun 


since he and Ron Buchanan actually conducted 


that sampling. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: We have, I can’t remember 


whether we transmitted any documents to NIOSH 


other than the claimant numbers in the 


(unintelligible) plant, but Ron did do a 

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check. We had two sets of completeness 


checks. One was on a set of 32 randomly 


selected files put together (unintelligible) 


we had selected them. And that is complete. 


The investigation analysis is complete. This 


morning I did send the four spreadsheets to 


Joe for forwarding to Emily as it says in 


action item number two, for Privacy Act 


review. 


So we have completed the analysis of 


the random set. We also have completed the 


analysis of the 20 cases of the highly 


exposed, the ones that were judged to be 


highly exposed by Rocky Flats on a cumulative 


basis, ten from group three and ten from group 


four, categorized according to exposures. And 


we have also completed that. 


So we should be forwarding shortly the 


completed analysis of both things to NIOSH I 


think in the next couple of days, right, Joe? 


MR. FITZGERALD: I would say so, and just 


clarity’s sake, we’ll send the attachments to 


both Emily as well as Dave Staudt. Dave’s 


also coordinating Privacy Act reviews. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, and I guess you’ll be 

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sending them to Brant also, right? 


MR. FITZGERALD: I certainly can. Again, I 


think the restricted distribution would just 


be NIOSH at this stage in terms of screening 


for Privacy Act. 


DR. ULSH: Yeah, there’s going to be an 


issue there since I’m NIOSH, so go ahead and 


please send it to me, too, so we --


MR. FITZGERALD: We’ll send it to all three 


of you. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: So you’ll have all four 


spreadsheets today, and then you will see the 


write-up very shortly. It does not contain 


any Privacy Act material. It only has 


cumulative so many missing years, so many 


percent and so on. It has no individual 


information. 


MS. MUNN: Arjun and Joe, you’re leaving the 


rest of us here with a cliffhanger. I feel 


like I’m holding my breath thinking what is 


the bottom line. And I guess at this juncture 


can you at least say whether you feel this 


particular process has brought you any further 


to closure on the issue? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I mean, as with 

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permission, Mark, I can tell you where we are. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay, let me just open the 


file here so I can give you the accurate 


bottom line here. When we did external and 


internal separately, we do the minimal 


screening check for completeness. If there 


was even one entry, one badge entry, even a 


zero in any particular year, we did not count 


it as a year with missing data. So when we 


found a year that was completely blank and no 


guide information, we called it a missing 


data. 


Similarly for internal dose if there 


was any internal dose measurement, either 


urine or fecal or in vivo, we called it that. 


We did not call that a year with missing data. 


So this is a minimal screening check for 


completeness. 


MS. MUNN: I understand. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: We did find that in the 


1950s in the random sample, about a third of 


the workers have at least one year of missing 


data and the cumulative missing years were 21 


percent. For the ’64 to ’92 period -- and 

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remember we divided this into two periods 


according to the universal badging, pre-


universal badging and post-universal badging, 


there were about a third of the workers had a 


missing, at least one year with missing data. 


But that’s a little bit misleading 


because we went up to 1992, and 1992 was a 


transition year. So if you omit 1992 actually 


that percentage drops to about 20 percent. 


Production stopped I believe in January 1992, 


so the badging policies would have changed at 


that time presumably with the transition year. 


And for cumulative years missing, cumulative 


missing years were ten percent. So in the 


second period there wasn’t any, we overall did 


not discover a large gap in the random sample. 


In the internal data there was a 


considerable number of workers, almost three-


fourths of the workers had at least one 


missing year of some internal dose data in the 


random sample. So that was the biggest gap 


that we discovered in the random sample. 


Then the highly exposed workers were 


examined for the coworker model question, and 


in the highly exposed workers we found 

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essentially no gaps in the internal data, and 


that is every worker practically had full -- I 


would change to that. Every worker had at 


least one internal dose measurement from the 


beginning to the end of employment. 


So we didn’t think that there should 


be an issue in regards to the coworker models 


with internal dose for the radionuclides for 


which there are measurements. We didn’t check 


for radionuclide-specific (unintelligible). 


In regard to the external dose of the 


cumulatively highly exposed workers, we did 


discover that there were significant gaps in 


monitoring from the 1950s, especially for the 


group three workers. And NIOSH also has 


documented there were a significant number of 


workers who were not monitored. So there’s a 


separate analysis for the 1950s, and it seemed 


that in the initial years of employment there 


was a lot of missing years. 


We investigated in a very preliminary 


way the job cards of these workers and found 


that as one might have expected that there is 


an explanation for this, that the uranium 


workers in the non-plutonium areas tend to 

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essentially explain the gap. The gaps were 


not in the plutonium areas. 


Now this does, this is a little bit of 


a problem in terms of completeness for dose 


reconstruction purposes because the assumption 


was that the non-plutonium areas don’t have 


high external dose potentials. That actually 


is not uniformly the case. The Rocky Flats 


history documents that in the depleted uranium 


areas, for example, the thorium and 


protactinium tended to flow to the surface, 


and so they were quite high shallow or beta 


dose potential in those areas. 


So there’s an issue in terms of 


constructing an appropriate model for external 


dose for the 1950s in terms of period and 


types of workers. But I think the type of 


problem is identified, and so we haven’t come 


to any conclusion that it can’t be done. It’s 


just an outstanding issue. It’s not been 


addressed so far as I know in the coworker 


model that NIOSH has come up with 


specifically. 


MS. MUNN: That’s good information, Arjun, 


thank you. 

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DR. ULSH: I have to chime in here, and I’m 


in a very great disadvantage because I’m 


trying to comment on a report that I haven’t 


seen yet. But I feel compelled to because now 


the conclusions or at least the tentative 


conclusions are out there on the record. 


First of all, the periods when there 


is no monitoring data has been characterized 


as missing, periods when the data is missing. 


And I caution everybody when you read about it 


in the Rocky Mountain News tomorrow, that 


NIOSH has not yet had a chance to evaluate 


this report, and we cannot concur or really 


even disagree. We can’t offer any opinion on 


whether there are periods with missing data. 


There are periods with no data, and in 


the past, in the first 12 we found a large 


number of instances when those periods with no 


monitoring data to be (telephonic 


interference) where the person worked and 


whether or not they would be expected to be 


monitored. So I would just ask everyone to 


reserve judgment on this until we have a 


chance to do it and weigh in. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: May I just correct myself. 

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I’m quite sorry. You brought this up last 


time, and I used the word missing data 


inappropriately. I should have said gaps in 


the data. And when you see the write-up, 


actually it will reflect it that way. It does 


mean that the workers, so far as we’ve been 


able to discover, that the workers were not 


monitored at that time, that it isn’t that the 


workers were monitored and some other data are 


missing. 


MS. MUNN: Well, thank you for the concern 


with semantics. Certainly, especially taken 


out of context, a single word can be very 


misleading --


DR. MAKHIJANI: The write-up will reflect 


that these are data gaps. They’re basically 


blanks in the data record. 


MR. GRIFFON: And that’s part of the reason 


that I was trying to stick mainly to an update 


was that I knew that NIOSH hadn’t seen this 


yet, so I didn’t want to get too much into, 


because it may be that as Brant says that some 


of these gaps can be explained by the programs 


or practices of the time. 


MS. MUNN: Absolutely. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, what they were doing. 


MS. MUNN: Thank you for the update. That’s 


great. 


MR. GRIFFON: Now in terms of the timing, 


then this report is going out to NIOSH, and 


then we should be in a position to hopefully 


discuss this at the face-to-face work group 


meeting, right, Brant? That’s, I guess, what 


we’re driving toward. 


DR. ULSH: Right, yeah, as soon as we get 


it. I mean, we’ve already started looking at 


the files and SC&A has provided us with the 


identities of the cases they’re looking at. 


MS. MUNN: And with (unintelligible), right? 


MR. GRIFFON: Yes, they said tentative. At 


least we can discuss that at the end, but I 


think the 26th was going to work for most 


people. 


MR. FITZGERALD: But I certainly will 


forward these spreadsheets today after the 


call. 


And Arjun, I think the actual 


analysis, the written analysis, would be 


available in the next day or two. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, it’s essentially 

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complete, and so that’s why I was able, and 


I’m very sorry that you don’t have it right 


now, but it’s undergoing internal checks to 


make sure that it’s all all right. 


MR. GRIFFON: Is there anything else on data 


completeness from Joe or Brant at this point? 


DR. ULSH: Well, yeah, I do have a question, 


Mark, just related to sub-point number three 


that NIOSH will provide access to all Rocky 


Flats’ claimants, both for designated SC&A 


staff. I think we’ve done that. Is anybody 


aware of any issues or problems? 


MR. GRIFFON: No, not at this point. Like I 


said, this is an old summary of actions. 


DR. ULSH: No, I understand. I just want to 


make sure that no one’s experiencing any 


issues. 


MR. GRIFFON: SC&A, you’ve had access to the 


files that you needed, right, the rad files? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Oh, yes, we’ve had complete 


access. 


MS. MUNN: So we can call number three done? 


MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 


MS. MUNN: Three is done. 


MR. FITZGERALD: I guess, Mark, before we 

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leave this issue, consistent with what you’ve 


indicated before, I mean, based on NIOSH’s 


review starting this week, if there’s any 


need, obviously, to schedule a call to clarify 


within the report or to ask questions, 


certainly we can do that in real time, not 


have to wait, I guess, until the 26th . I mean, 


we have a couple weeks we can use. 


MR. GRIFFON: Is that agreeable, Brant? 


DR. ULSH: Yes. 


MR. GRIFFON: Call as necessary. We can get 


a technical call, yeah, that’d be great. 


D AND D PERIOD
 

Okay, on to item three which would be 


the D and D worker approach. 


MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, let me. I’ll take 


that up. 


This issue was raised, I think, at the 


Denver Advisory Board meeting primarily 


because the timeframe for the petition class 


went to 2005, but the internal coworker model 


and some of the other characterization did not 


include the D&D era, which is ’93 through the 


closure of the plant. 


So we were concerned about the need to 

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simply characterize better, well, it may have 


been more contemporary, but also certainly not 


routine relative to the Rocky mission 


activities that were going on during the D&D 


phase where certainly we were concerned about 


elevated exposures for while the transient 


subcontractors came. 


NIOSH has done a considerable amount 


of work. They have provided documentation in 


terms of policies, procedures. We’ve looked 


at those, have identified other issues, and 


where we come out, frankly, is trying to 


figure out how one can characterize dose 


distributions for D&D workers and trying to 


figure out who they worked for, what have you. 


The last iteration was, and this was 


presented to us some weeks ago, was a 


comparison of what was called top-tier 


contractors in terms of their dose 


distribution with all subcontractors. I think 


that was like 206 subcontractors, and a subset 


which were identified as likely D&D 


subcontractors. It was a smaller group. I 


don’t remember the number of those, was it 


nine, something like that. 

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But in any case, the analysis showed 


very similar dose distributions in terms of 


those groups. Frankly, we thought that was 


persuasive, sufficiently persuasive that one 


could envelope these various groups, 


particularly the D&D subcontractors within a 


coworker model for a larger RFP worker 


population. 


That was the question that we had, 


whether or not you needed a separate coworker 


model for D&D workers. We felt that was 


fairly persuasive, and NIOSH has developed an 


OTIB, OTIB-14, which extends the internal 


coworker model through, I believe, it’s 2005, 


which would encompass the D&D era. That was 


issued on December 7th . 


We’re finishing up our review of that. 


We essentially have one question from that 


review, and we’ll certainly provide Brant our 


comments when we complete that. That should 


be completed here relatively soon. 


But that involves the period of time 


when fecal sampling was used for a number of 


these termination bioassays versus lung 


counting, versus urinalysis, and just trying 

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to reconcile whether any bias may be 


introduced by the actual form of bioassay that 


was done for these termination bioassays. And 


we don’t have any real answer at this point. 


It’s just a question that’s come up as 


to does that perturb the coworker model for 


those individuals who may have received 


different bioassays? And that’s again just 


for purposes of passing that along, and that’s 


the only question that we’ve come up with in 


that evaluation at this point. 


But in terms of the overall 


distribution I think we’re satisfied that that 


tends to address the question that we had 


originally which was the difference between 


the dose distribution for the normal routine 


contractors and those that were doing D&D. I 


think a lot of it came down to the fact that 


the steelworkers in that would be considered 


part of the top-tier group actually did a lot 


of the initial radiologically dirty tear downs 


and what have you. 


And this work was turned over to the 


subcontractor teams later on; and therefore, 


actually there wasn’t a lot of the, 

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necessarily a lot of the dirty work 


concentrated in any particular subcontractor 


group. I think that’s a fair estimation for 


that. That’s where we are on D&D at this 


point. We’re finishing up the OTIB-14 review. 


We should have something relatively soon. I 


suspect maybe a brief issue-specific call 


could resolve any remaining questions on that. 


DR. ULSH: Okay, thanks, Joe. It’s actually 


an OCAS TIB. Okay, I’m happy to hear a 


favorable review of the termination bioassay 


analysis that Gene Potter performed. That’s 


gratifying. 


Gene is on the call, so he heard your 


question there about the particular type of 


bioassay. We’ll start thinking about that. 


And then I guess we’ll just wait for your 


formal review of OTIB-14, but we’ll go ahead 


and start thinking about the answer to that 


question. 


MR. FITZGERALD: Right, and we should have 


something for you soon, and maybe we can 


schedule something. 


MR. GRIFFON: So the remaining action is, 


Joe, you’re going to complete the review of 

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OTIB-14, but otherwise you feel pretty 


comfortable with the comparison of 


distributions? 


MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, on the fundamental 


question that satisfies us, and I think we’re 


just trying to make sure that we give OTIB-14 


a good review before we pass on it. That 


catch you up on your schedule? 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah, thank you. I 

think that’s all we have on that item. I was 

going to get through that quickly. 

MS. MUNN: That’s terrific. 

LOGBOOK ANALYSIS 

MR. GRIFFON: And I think, actually, number 


four might be a fairly quick update, too, the 


log book analysis. 


MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I’ll turn to Kathy in 


a second, but that was the only one of the 


three chunks that we didn’t quite get out, but 


that one does have some Privacy Act 


implications. 


So we may, Brant, send it to you, but 


we may also have to have Emily take a look at 


it before we more broadly distribute it. 


DR. ULSH: Yeah, that’s fine, Joe. 

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MR. FITZGERALD: But, Kathy, do you want to 


say a few words in terms of bottom lines 


relative to log book reviews that -- we’ve 


already sent you the pieces on the data 


integrity examples and before that on safety 


concerns. So this is sort of the third leg of 


the stool on data reliability. 


MS. ROBERTSON-DeMERS: If you remember, 


NIOSH took names from the log book and did a 


comparison of any individual data that 


occurred in the log book with the actual 


health physics file where available. Then 


they did a second review of the log book which 


was extended to all the log books that had 


been recovered. The first one just from a 


single log book. 


And overall, I got a lot of agreement 


as NIOSH did, pretty much the same percentage 


rates which were around 94 percent of the data 


that occurred in the log book agreed with the 


health physics file. Several components were 


looked at. If a person was sent for a body 


count, we looked at whether the health physics 


file had a record of that body count. 


If a person’s badge was overexposed, 

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we looked -- and they recorded a dose number 


in the log book, we looked for whether that 


person had that dose value in as small an 


increment as we could. Some of the dose 


values were quarterly, so we did a direct 


comparison. 


Some of the values recorded in the log 


book were from a smaller period of time. So 


we looked at whether they were consistent, 


meaning that the quarterly dose that covered 


that period was at least equal to or higher 


than what was recorded in the log book. 


MR. GRIFFON: That’s great. 


MS. ROBERTSON-DeMERS: The one question that 


is kind of outstanding is that we submitted a 


list of log books that we wanted pulled, at 


the request of the working group, probably 


back in the summer of this year. And several 


of those log books have not been discussed in 


the review that NIOSH did the second review, 


or the first review for that matter. And 


we’re uncertain what the status on these log 


books are. Whether they were reviewed and 


seemed to be not pertinent or how NIOSH did on 


the remainder of, there were a number of log 

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books. 


MR. GRIFFON: Were they similar types of log 


books, Kathy, or was it hard to tell based on 


your --


MS. ROBERTSON-DeMERS: It was hard to tell 


based upon the inventory. 


DR. ULSH: If I could perhaps speak. I 


don’t want to interrupt, Kathy. Are you done 


or should I wait to speak or --


MS. ROBERTSON-DeMERS: That’s kind of the 


gist of it. Most of the log books that were 


reviewed I originally requested independent of 


NIOSH, the ones that are listed on the O 


drive, and that feeds into the question of 


whether these other log books were reviewed 


from the master list and what the turn out of 


the review was. 


DR. ULSH: The short answer to your question 


is that all of the log books being reviewed 


are reflected in that log book report, you 


know, the report that we issued on the 


comparison. So if it’s not in that report, it 


was not reviewed. 


To go back to the history of how this 


all developed, it started with the, what we 

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affectionately call the Kittinger Log. That 


was identified as one that might be 


interesting, and I initially did a detailed 


analysis of that one and presented it at a 


working group meeting. 


And then the next iteration along 


these lines was, okay, well, let’s take it 


just a handful of data points from some 


representative types of log books that covered 


different facilities. In other words, the 


plutonium facilities, the uranium facilities 


and covered a span of time periods that 


reflect the operations of the site. 


We never committed in the working 


group and the working group never asked us to 


review all log books that could be retrieved 


or even all of them that were listed. We just 


committed and were asked to review 


representative log books of the different 


types. 


MR. GRIFFON: No, that’s true. That’s why I 


was asking Brant whether the log books that 


Kathy’s talking about were consistent with the 


types and areas and, you know, because I think 


that’s what we did ask you to do. You’re 

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right. 


DR. ULSH: And there were some types of log 


books, and I can’t recall exactly that we 


initially discussed in the working group 


meeting, and then as we looked at them, we 


kind of jointly decided, jointly meaning we 


talked to the working group about it, and said 


that these types of log books are not really 


helpful. They don’t contain the data that we 


can cross walk. They might have been the 


foreman’s logs, but don’t take that to the 


bank. I can’t --


MR. GRIFFON: I recall that as well, yes. 


DR. ULSH: There were a couple that we 


decided mid-process were not going to be 


helpful and so we focused on the other types, 


but that was kind of how this all evolved. 


MS. ROBERTSON-DeMERS: Which brings me to 


the question of why was the focus put on log 


books that SC&A reviewed or quote from Rocky 


Flats independently of NIOSH? It’s just a 


concern that there are other log books out 


there that we provided in the master list that 


probably were beneficial to look at. 


DR. ULSH: I think we might -- I don’t know. 

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Theresa, you’re on line right? 


MS. LOPEZ: Yes, I am. 


DR. ULSH: Okay, I think we might agree --


and Theresa, correct me if I’m wrong -- but 


there are probably other log books out there 


that could be looked at. But this, the ones 


that we looked at fulfilled our commitment to 


the working group and what they asked us to 


do. 


Theresa, do you have anything to add 


on that? 


MS. LOPEZ: No, I don’t. Maybe just one 


thing. On some of those I have noticed that 


there are some naming conventions that make 


tracking a log book a little bit difficult 


between all the different lists floating out 


there. Some of the log books that you may 


think you haven’t found have actually been 


renamed or were named differently when entered 


onto the O drive. 


It took me awhile to find a few 


myself, and that might be part of the problem. 


I can, for example, there’s one Kittinger log 


that is named Kittinger log number four, and 


then it is also called log book, for example, 

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September of ’68 through ’69. And that might 


be part of the problem. Some of those log 


books have two names on the O drive. 


MR. GRIFFON: Maybe I can ask Kathy and Joe 


if you can, in your report on the log book 


analysis, I mean, it sounds like you had, you 


found the same agreement that NIOSH did 


overall. That’s sort of the bottom line 


maybe. But also you might want to look at our 


original request to NIOSH and maybe offer an 


opinion on that. 


Does it adequately cover the time 


periods and the operations of concern? I 


think if it does, I don’t know that we need 


much more on this. But it might be worth 


looking at to make sure that we covered the 


span of the operations adequately. 


Does that make any sense, Joe? 


MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, well, we’ll certainly 


comment on the scope, but I agree that this 


has been pretty extensive so, you know, we’ll 


go take a look and make sure we put that in. 


MR. GRIFFON: And we didn’t certainly expect 


NIOSH to review all of the log books that they 


identified. I think we can leave that as 

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we’ll wait and see. 


So the ball’s in your court, Joe, to 


release this final report that you have. 


MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, and again, I think 


the only hesitation is there’s Privacy Act 


considerations that we’d like to go ahead and 


screen out before wider distribution, but 


we’ll certainly do what we’re doing with the 


completeness review which is we’ll send it to 


you, Brant, and we’ll send it to Emily and get 


a reading before we do a broad distribution. 


MR. GRIFFON: Brant, anything else on that 


topic? 


DR. ULSH: No, nothing. 


MR. GRIFFON: Until you see the report 


probably, yeah. 


DATA INTEGRITY AND SAFETY CONCERNS
 

I’m going to insert two items in here, 


Joe, because you just prompted me that you did 


issue reports on the data integrity and safety 


concerns, and maybe I can insert that in, it 


seems to go along with the log book analysis 


all in this --


MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


MR. GRIFFON: -- analysis of data integrity. 

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Can you, I mean I know that NIOSH just 


recently received the report --


MR. FITZGERALD: The safety concern one went 


out about three or four weeks ago. 


MR. GRIFFON: Oh, that went out a little 


longer ago. 


MR. FITZGERALD: Data integrity examples was 


about ten days ago, so they’re pretty lengthy. 


I don’t know if we want to take a lot of time 


here, but, Kathy, can you say 30 seconds on 


each? 


MS. ROBERTSON-DeMERS: Okay, the safety 


concerns for the most part there was agreement 


between SC&A and NIOSH on whether they were 


relevant to the petition. There were some 


exceptions related to whether dosimetry 


investigations were actually conducted and 


documented prior to the first documentation 


I’ve run across since 1986. 


But this is a contention that if there 


was a problem with the badge, the dosimetry 


investigation was conducted. And what we have 


right now is essentially the work of the 


former (unintelligible) staff that it was done 


and no documentation that we’ve found to date. 

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So that was one issue, and some of this 


overlaps between the two reviews. That 


happens to be an issue that overlaps between 


the data integrity and the safety concerns. 


Another one that overlaps is the fact 


that there were situations expressed where the 


individual did not believe their dosimeter 


readings based upon the work activities they 


were involved with for that particular 


timeframe. And in this case we felt that 


there was further explanations that needed to 


be provided by NIOSH. Brant can tell you the 


gist of their, where they came out on this. 


The response, the dose rate varied by 


position of the workers relative to the floors 


and the claim that areas were posted as a 


maximum dose rate was in essence how they had 


answered that question. And if we’re looking 


for more of how could this have happened, we 


have approximately 20 people bringing this 


issue up. Is there a problem with the badge? 


Is there a problem with the dosimetry 


investigations that occurred under their old 


situation? They’re looking for more of an 


explanation rather than the area where this 

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posted maximum dose rate. 


Those are really the two big issues 


that we didn’t have concurrence on. So both 


the safety concerns and the data integrity 


example. 


MR. FITZGERALD: I think in general, and we 


made this clear in our review, that we do not 


necessarily agree with some of the individual 


safety concern interpretations or evaluations 


that NIOSH has provided. The same thing with 


some of the data integrity examples, but taken 


as a whole, we still believe that these don’t 


rise to a threshold where we believe there’s a 


pattern or a systemic issue or a falsification 


issue that relates to the records or the 


database. So to some extent it’s inconclusive 


on some of these issues, but we have not found 


evidence of a pervasive issue throughout the 


database. And that’s kind of where we came 


out on the data reliability, very extensive, 


very extensive data reliability review that’s 


been conducted. 


MR. GRIFFON: You’re answering my questions 


before I ask them, Joe, very good. The focus 


was on the, or the reason for all this was to 

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look at that systemic question. 


MR. FITZGERALD: Right, right, if we could 


connect the dots, meaning that if we could 


find enough examples that taken together 


constituted a pattern of either falsification 


or discrepancies in the records, then that 


would lead us to be concerned about the 


records as a whole. But the issues we found 


were individual issues even though, as Kathy 


points out, we found in some cases several or 


more examples, we didn’t find a pattern or 


systemic situations. And that’s kind of where 


we came out. 


DR. ULSH: I think Joe and Kathy have 


accurately summarized where we are, Mark. We 


don’t necessarily agree on every individual 


example, but I think overall we are in general 


agreement. Given that, I guess I would like 


to get the pleasure of the working group. 


Should we dedicate more time to those 


instances where we haven’t reached concurrence 


or is the working group satisfied on these 


issues? 


MS. MUNN: This is Wanda. I was very 


impressed with the quality of the two recent 

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reports in this regard and understand the 


problem that still exists with some individual 


cases. But insofar as satisfying what I 


believe our original concern was, my sense was 


that Joe and Kathy’s most recent report did 


satisfy that concern. It might give us some 


grief with respect to one or more individuals 


when those dose reconstructions were 


undertaken. But certainly I didn’t see 


anything that would keep us from being able to 


do valid coworker evaluations. 


Did you, Mark? 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I mean, my first review 


of these reports I agree. I think we have 


what we need --


MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


MR. GRIFFON: -- in terms of making, you 


know, from an SEC standpoint here, you know, 


that I don’t know that we need any more 


actions on NIOSH to have on the individual 


items. 


MS. MUNN: This has been a very thorough 


investigation. Both SC&A personnel and NIOSH 


folks are to be congratulated from my point of 


view. This has been an extremely defining --

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MR. PRESLEY: This is Bob Presley. I agree 


one hundred percent. I think that we right 


now have enough data to make our decision on 


these. 


MR. GIBSON: And this is Mike. I’m going 


to, I’m going to somewhat disagree at this 


point only that I agree that there’s been a 


lot of work put in on this site, but to 


categorically say that, you know, maybe one of 


the complaints was valid. Maybe ten of them 


weren’t. There still could be an issue there 


that could amount to something. So I just, 


I’m not going to hold up further research, but 


I just want to go on the record as saying as 


one that’s been out in the field, I don’t 


think we can think these concerns are not 


valid. 


MS. MUNN: Mike, it wasn’t my intent, 


certainly personally, to indicate that any of 


the individual concerns were not valid. That 


was not the thought that I was trying to 


convey. I was trying to convey the fact that 


it was a pleasure to see that there did not 


appear to be any pattern of real attempt to in 


any way change the reality of the data that 

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had been gathered at the time, that the 


integrity of what was there was acceptable and 


(unintelligible) basis that some individuals 


may have to be treated differently. That was 


what I was trying to convey. 


MR. GIBSON: I’m sorry, Wanda, I didn’t mean 


that. What I meant was given the limited 


amount of complaints that were made, there may 


have been many more workers who had a 


complaint but weren’t aware of the process of 


making a complaint. So again, I don’t want to 


belabor the subject, but I’m just saying I 


don’t agree for right now, but I’m just 


wanting the members to work through, but we’ll 


let it go. 


MR. GRIFFON: And then there’s only one area 


in this group of concerns. I think that one 


of the areas, this no data available question 


might overlap with our data completeness 


review and some of those sort of that side of 


it. But I think, I mean certainly I agree 


that we’re not taking away from any of these 


individual claims. 


But I think we’ve, the real question 


we’ve got to try to get our hands around for 

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78 

this entire class is that systemic question. 


And I think we’ve got a lot of material here 


to make our -- mainly what I’m saying now is I 


don’t think there’s any further action 


required of NIOSH at this point. We’ve got 


information here, another prong of our 


investigation to report back to the full Board 


with on this question of data integrity. 


MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I’ll just add the one 


rather significant caveat to this conclusion 


is obviously the 1969-’70 issue which we had 


parsed out in a sense as a separate issue, but 


obviously, it relates to the records 


integrity. And there we do think there is a 


problem. But again, it’s not sort of part of 


this generic review or conclusion but more of 


a special issue that we felt deserved 


attention for its own sake. So there is one 


big caveat to that broad conclusion, and it’s 


really the ’69-’70 situation which we’ll get 


to here shortly. 


MR. GRIFFON: But I think we’ll, at this 


point there’s a primary remaining action is 


SC&A to get the log book report to NIOSH. And 


then these other three reports, we can do a 

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final discussion of these at the face-to-face 


work group. But I think we’ve got to keep in 


mind the systemic question, and I don’t see 


any need to have a follow up action on NIOSH’s 


behalf on the specific differences. 


MS. ROBERTSON-DeMERS: This is Kathy. I 


just wanted to clarify something. When a 


concern was raised, I went about trying to 


determine if that concern had an impact on 


dose reconstruction. It was not a matter of, 


yes, I agree with the worker, or no, I agree 


with the worker, or I don’t agree with the 


worker. So I just wanted to make that 


clarification. 


MR. GRIFFON: No, that’s a good distinction, 


thank you. 


I think we, I mean, I think we’re 


through this item. All I was going to ask 


before we move on to the 1969 data gap, it is 


noontime. I could use at least a comfort 


break, and I don’t know if people, one, I 


don’t think we have a lot of time left to 


complete our agenda, but I would certainly be 


willing to take a short break and have people 


bring lunches to the phone or take a half hour 

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for lunch or what’s the pleasure of those 


primarily involved here? Joe, Brant, do you 


have a --


DR. ULSH: I’m okay with just a short 


comfort break, but I’ll defer to everyone 


else. 


MR. PRESLEY: This is Bob Presley, short 


comfort break is wonderful. 


MR. GRIFFON: I really think we can wrap it 


up by 1:00. So let’s take ten minutes then if 


that’s okay, and Ray, I didn’t ask you, but is 


that okay? 


THE COURT REPORTER: Yes, sir. 


DR. WADE: So we’ll get back together about 


12:15, 12:20. 


MR. PRESLEY: Hey, Lew, this is Bob. Since 


we’re having problems with the phone, I’m just 


going to leave my phone muted. 


DR. WADE: You don’t have to hang up. Just 


stay on the line the rest of you. 


MR. GRIFFON: Twelve:twenty we’ll reconvene. 


DR. WADE: Twelve:twenty we’ll be back ready 


to work. 


(Whereupon a break was taken from 12:10 p.m. 


until 12:20 p.m.) 

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1969 DATA GAP
 

MR. GRIFFON: All right, I think we’re ready 


to go into the 1969 data gap questions, and, 


Joe, maybe you can start us off. 


MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, let me tee this thing 


up. In the process of doing our data 


reliability reviews that Kathy has done and 


also in terms of what Ron Buchanan was doing 


in terms of looking at dose distributions, 


basically to hit 20 files and looking at 


comparisons as part of the external dosimetry 


look, we started noticing a discrepancy or a 


pattern of discrepancies for a couple years 


beginning in ’69 and going into 1970. 


And what we were noticing was an 


increase in the number of zero readings that 


were being recorded during that time period in 


terms of the proportion of readings. And as 


we have presented to NIOSH, and I think we did 


get some agreement, yes, certainly the 


prevalence of zero badge readings did go up 


for those years. 


And NIOSH subsequently pursued that, 


investigated it and came up with a number of 


possibilities including the implementation of 

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badging reading policy for non-plutonium 


workers which may have led to badges being 


received but not read for employees whose 


exposures were seen as not necessarily being 


high enough to report unless there were an 


accident or an incident, that kind of thing. 


Another possibility was perhaps a computer 


error or a computer programming switchover of 


some sort as a possibility. 


NIOSH did a review which we received 


which went through these possibilities, 


provided some rationales and also got into the 


data a bit more in terms of which individuals 


had large, relatively large, larger gaps 


versus those that had fewer gaps, but gaps 


nonetheless. 


We have since gone through a much more 


detailed analysis in terms of looking at the 


actual individual data files to actually 


ascertain the significance of the gaps for 


what the individual job categories were and to 


try to pin down better what seems to be the 


reason these gaps are arising. And we do 


believe these gaps are real for those periods, 


that particular period of time. 

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And to that extent NIOSH, I think, 


agrees that certainly those gaps are real. So 


what we want to do is provide the perspective 


as to the origins of the gaps and what the 


implications of those gaps are from an SEC 


standpoint and select a second banana, but 


I’ll turn it to Arjun, who has been spending a 


great deal of time with Kathy DeMers on this 


particular review. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, this is basically 


something that’s been done by Kathy, and I’ve 


worked along with her mainly to make sure that 


the I’s have been dotted and T’s are being 


crossed. So I don’t know how much in detail 


you want to go at this stage or give me some 


online guidance here, Joe. 


MR. GRIFFON: This is Mark. I think, I 


mean, maybe an overview, but I also, you’re in 


a position where NIOSH and the work group 


doesn’t have the report, right? 


MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


MR. GRIFFON: So I don’t want to get into a 


position, where you put Brant in a position of 


having to respond to something that he’s 


hearing now without seeing the report. 

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84 

MR. FITZGERALD: This is in the same context 


to complete this report in the sense that 


there are some potential Privacy Act issues. 


So we will forward this in the next day or so 


and then also have Emily take a look. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, but there are Privacy 


Act issues here, and this is also undergoing 


more internal review on the file. Let me just 


say that where we agreed with NIOSH at first 


because that will be uncontroversial. 


We agreed on review of that these data 


gaps or blanks don’t seem to be associated 


with a fire, but a large part seems to be 


associated with an earlier decision taken 


before the fire to not read three-month badges 


associated with non-plutonium areas. People 


who were not thought to be at risk of exposure 


over the ten percent, over ten percent of the 


applicable maximum in a given year, and a 


considerable number of badges were not read. 


We reviewed the NIOSH explanation also 


and believe that when the dosimetry logs and 


the one where the technicians measure the 


densities and enter the doses, one with the 


zeros and the arrows down the line for ’69 

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seems to be associated with areas where the 


badges weren’t read. 


We looked at the different databases 


that are associated with external dose just to 


see what happened with those blanks or gaps in 


the data when the badges weren’t read, and we 


found that the some, there were four other 


databases, the occupational dose reports, the 


dosimetry history by individual, the HPERER --


and if you push me, I’ll read out the acronym 


-- and the HIS-20 database. And we found on 


the occupational dose reports and the 


dosimetry history by individual, generally --


no -- and the HPERER, the occupational dose 


reports and the HPERER databases the 


(unintelligible) carried over. 


We also found that the HIS-20 


database, and we looked at 19 different 


individuals, and in the dosimetry history by 


individuals, the blanks tended to turn into 


zeros so that in the HIS-20 database now 


you’ve got zeros from less than detectable 


limits that appear to be mixed up with zeros 


of badges that were not read. 


Some of these people seem to have 

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significant exposure potential. We looked at 


their prior years’ data and they seem to be, 


at least in some cases, declined, having 


declined doses. So there are a lot of details 


to this analysis that NIOSH will get in the 


next day or two. 


MR. GRIFFON: I think this is one we 


certainly may want to reserve a space for a 


technical call next week because I think, like 


you said, there are some details here that 


NIOSH needs a chance to look at and be in a 


position to respond to. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, there are some pretty 


significant details I think that NIOSH will 


need to look at. 


MR. GRIFFON: There’s still music in the 


background. 


DR. WADE: Yeah, this is Lew. It’s going to 


fall on deaf ears I’m afraid, but I mean we 


are hearing background music. I would guess 


it’s someone has put us on hold. I don’t know 


what we can do about that other than again ask 


all of us to think about what happens when 


we’re here and when we’re not here in terms 


of... I don’t know how we can deal with it 

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otherwise. If it’s annoying enough, we could 


all hang up and call back and possibly 


establish a new contact point, but I’m not 


sure that would even work. 


MR. GRIFFON: I think we can talk over it 


right now. It’s not too bad. 


DR. WADE: I’ll come on periodically and 


make a comment about it. 


MS. MUNN: As long as somebody’s talking 


otherwise we’re all going to sleep. 


MR. PRESLEY: Somebody’s using a computer, 


too, that’s close to wherever their phone is, 


and that’s more annoying than the music. 


DR. WADE: I could just hear it just before 


you stopped speaking. So again, good 


etiquette for all of us. I mean, all of us 


are guilty at one point in time of not doing 


this right. So mute unless you’re speaking, 


and while we appreciate the music, it would be 


nicer if it could stop. 


MR. GRIFFON: So Joe, just a sense of when 


is this report going to get to Brant and just 


in terms of timing I’m trying to --


MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I think as Arjun 


pointed out, the report’s drafted along with 

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the accompanying spreadsheets. What we’re 


doing now is just some final QA. 


Arjun, is it fair to say, today is 


Tuesday, maybe sometime Thursday? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I think by Thursday you 


should have both reports. The spreadsheets 


you will have today. I went back and changed 


the word missing to a more appropriate word. 


So you will see the spreadsheets today from 


Joe as Joe has sent you the corrected ones. 


MR. FITZGERALD: And I have the corrected 


spreadsheets for the completeness reel and the 


corrected spreadsheets for the ’69 as well? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, I don’t think there 


are any problems with ’69, but I will review 


that before I send it to you. 


MR. GRIFFON: I guess a couple questions I 


had that just might be important here. 


Brant, I don’t know if you have any 


further information, but it might become 


important on this policy that we all found in 


the memo that you identified, or I’m not sure 


who identified it, but I think it was a 1969 


memo in fact, a memo report where it indicated 


that this policy of badged people, but some of 

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the quarterly badged were not read out. 


And I think, Arjun, I’m not sure if 


your statement was accurate. I don’t think it 


was based on the ten percent criteria. I 


think it was based on just a lower likelihood 


of risk of exposure. I don’t think it was 


still that ten percent criteria. At any rate, 


it was --


DR. MAKHIJANI: No, Mark, actually Kathy 


DeMers found the ten percent --


MR. GRIFFON: In another statement? Okay. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: -- statement. Can I just 


mention that document? 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, maybe you should mention 


it. 


MS. ROBERTSON-DeMERS: That is a letter that 


was drafted right before the occurrence of the 


NIOSH statement in the progress report. It 


goes into a little bit more detail on who they 


were going to put into the category of non-


plutonium workers. And that is where the ten 


percent, actually what it says is these people 


have been below ten percent of the in-plant 


guidelines during 1968. So it’s fair enough 


to say that we shouldn’t be reading these non­
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plutonium building badges. 


MR. GRIFFON: All right, and that references 


in your report so that’s --


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, because, you know, I 


haven’t been following this as you know, Mark. 


It’s been Kathy, and so in editing her work, I 


saw this and asked her to document. 


MR. GRIFFON: I’m sorry. I hadn’t seen 


that. 


DR. ULSH: Yeah, Mark, what we had was from, 


as Kathy mentioned, it was from a monthly 


progress report. It mentioned that people on 


quarterly badges at non-plutonium areas, the 


coworkers they identified. 


MR. GRIFFON: But it didn’t have this ten 


percent reference which is a different thing. 


DR. ULSH: Not in the monthly progress 


report. 


Kathy, if you wouldn’t mind, could you 


please send that over to me? I’d be very 


interested to see that. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yes, yes. And the only thing 


I was going to say, my bottom line there or 


question to you, Brant, was do we know when 


that policy ended? That was a question I’ve 

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asked before, but I think it might become 


important here in our review of looking at. 


DR. ULSH: I wish I could say yes, Mark, but 


I really can’t because I don’t know when it 


ended. Frank, do you have anything to add? 


 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No, I don’t know when 


that is either. That’s a good question. I 


guess one thing we can do is just look at the 


files we have on hand and see if we can find a 


notation of that. 


DR. ULSH: Well, there’s another thing, 


perhaps, it strikes me. 


Kathy, when you send over that letter 


I might look and see who the author is and do 


a search on anything that that author might 


have written. Now, if it’s a, or he writes a 


lot, that’s going to be a needle in a haystack 


kind of the thing, but if there’s a subsequent 


letter in ’72 or something, that might be a 


place to --


DR. MAKHIJANI: Mark, there is some 


circumstantial evidence in terms of how long 


this gap lasted. It seemed to go into 1970 


and stop there. So there’s no document that 


we’ve come across either, and the gaps don’t 

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seem to last beyond, well, you know, there are 


high zeros for different reasons later on, but 


this particular episode of high zeros in the 


HIS-20 seems to stop at 1970 sometime. 


MR. GRIFFON: Well, anyway, I think that 


might be, because I’m recalling your one 


example in the first 12 cases that you did. 


And if my memory serves me, that individual 


had a gap from more than just ’69 to ’70. It 


went though three or four years. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, it went through to 


’73. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and then albeit that 


individual certainly probably was on quarterly 


monitoring --


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. 


MR. GRIFFON: -- clearly they had gaps 


there. So that would not have fallen under a 


policy that ended in 1970, correct? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Right, but that gap also 


started in 1964. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay, so that might have been 


a different --


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, if that started in 


1969. 

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This question may have some larger 


implications and does need some more 


investigation. 


MR. GRIFFON: That’s why I’m asking about 


it, yeah. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I agree with you on that. 


MR. GRIFFON: It’s certainly got to impact 


how we interpret your data completeness 


analysis as well as the ’69 data gap, you 


know, or it could. I mean, the more we know, 


the better we can understand. 


DR. ULSH: There is one further confounder 


I’d like to remind everyone about and that is 


the ’69 fire essentially brought plutonium 


production to a halt. So you would expect to 


see higher incidences of zeros on the badges 


that were read. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. Brant, the only 


thing that we looked at was to separate the 


zeros that were read from the zeros that were 


not. 


DR. ULSH: Yeah, yeah. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: That’s where in the HIS-20 


is a result the best we could determine from 


badges that had never been read. 

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DR. ULSH: Yeah, well, we’ll take a look and 


MR. GRIFFON: I guess that’s as far as we 


can go now. And we might want to, like I 


said, reserve a spot for a technical call on 


this one. It seems like three of the ones 


that might require some time next week are the 


MR. PRESLEY: Hey, Mark, this is Bob 


Presley. 


Arjun, have you all looked at the 


possibility that after the fire these people 


were furloughed for a short time, and that 


that’s one reason that there’s some data gaps 


in there in their badges? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: We did. 


Kathy, can you fill in the detail on 


what we did for employment records? 


MS. ROBERTSON-DeMERS: Well, I’m not sure I 


understand your question, Bob. 


MR. PRESLEY: Okay, and this is just 


something, is there a possibility that after 


the fire that some of the people were 


furloughed for a short time so that they could 


go back and clean up and get back on because 

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of they would not have need for a lot of 


production workers if, you know, when the 


buildings and things were down. And I just 


wondered if there was a possibility that Rocky 


Flats furloughed these people for a short 


period of time. 


MS. ROBERTSON-DeMERS: Okay, so you’re 


talking about going from non-plutonium areas 


to plutonium areas? 


MR. PRESLEY: Even sending them home for 


awhile. If there was a --


MS. ROBERTSON-DeMERS: There were two 


examples in our comparison where the 


individual was technically assigned to a cold 


building. However, they were involved with 


either the fires or the cleanup. And we have 


evidence in their files that they received 


body count data or urinalysis around the time 


of the fire, but the 1969 data is null. 


MR. GRIFFON: The external data. 


MS. ROBERTSON-DeMERS: Yes, the external, 


sorry. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: A more direct answer to your 


question, Mr. Presley. All of the people that 


we looked at were assigned areas, their job 

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description was in areas other than plutonium. 


So they were not working, they were not 


production workers in the plutonium area. 


They were production workers in other areas 


like depleted uranium for example. And they 


do appear to have been issued badges in every 


one of the quarters. So from that I guess, 


and there’s no notation in their job cards 


that they were furloughed. 


MR. PRESLEY: Thank you, Arjun, I appreciate 

that. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, that’s good, and we’ll 

look at the details and NIOSH will get the 


report soon by the 11th we’re saying. 


NEUTRON ITEMS
 

Okay, let’s moving right on, have 


neutron, have the outstanding neutron action 


items. I think, I’ve listed several, the 


original list actually is still in the matrix 


MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, and we have 


reaffirmed some of those issues, certainly one 


or two are closed. But basically there’s 


agreement that these were outstanding items 


and we were --

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MR. GRIFFON: Just for reference, Joe -- I’m 


sorry, just for reference matrix item 23 in 


the updated matrix that I sent out lists all 


these. Now some have been completed 


certainly, but go ahead, Joe. I’m sorry. 


MR. FITZGERALD: I’m saying we’re certainly 


simply awaiting NIOSH response to some of 


those information needs. They’re essentially 


information needs that would complete our 


analysis. 


DR. ULSH: Yeah, I have an update there. 


Well, late yesterday, OTIB-58, the revision 


was signed, and I just sent that out this 


morning. I’m sure that you guys don’t have it 


yet due to the time it takes for replication. 


It’s my belief that that will respond 


to a lot of these action items, but take a 


look and feel free to direct questions to Matt 


Smith, just copy me since Matt’s the author of 


OTIB-58. We tried to get that done earlier, 


but the holidays really, and the snow storms 


in Colorado, really put a ding in our 


schedule. But it’s out there if you look. 


MR. GRIFFON: Now are these, Joe, from your 


side once you have this report you’re going to 

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include your final comments on this in your 


full report or are you going to give a 


separate response in any way or what do you 


anticipate, I guess? 


MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I certainly will 


defer to Ron. But basically these were data 


needs that we’ve identified early on that 


would make it possible just to be conclusive 


about some of the findings that we were 


developing. 


And Ron, would you say if we got the 


SEC information that would enable you to 


complete your report, but it wouldn’t probably 


necessarily evoke the new issues of SEC 


significance or what’s your perspective? 


 MR. BUCHANAN: I can’t find the new OTIB 


issued yesterday. I have an electronic form 


of it and glanced through it, and I, of 


course, have not had time to analyze that. 


That will take some time, and I’m not sure 


that we’ll get it in this interim report. In 


fact, we probably won’t in the near future. 


That does give a new table and that we 


were concerned with; however, we still lack 


the information on the detailed information on 

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the neutron badges in the ‘50s especially. 


That part of the request for data has not been 


received yet and analyzed. 


MR. FITZGERALD: That information is 


particularly pertinent to finishing the 


validation on the coworker model which, I 


think, would be the one item that would 


certainly bear on the SEC. 


DR. ULSH: I think I’ll have to check with 


my team after this call. I think that might 


be my oversight. I put a bunch of supporting 


files on the O drive along with the OTIB, but 


I might have inadvertently not put that one 


there. I’ll check on that. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: As of this morning I checked 


and the last data that was entered, I think, 


was like April of ’06. So the data that was 


with the OTIB-58 was not a recent entry. 


DR. ULSH: I’ll check into that, Ron. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Okay, thank you. 


MR. GRIFFON: Are there any other 


outstanding deliverables from NIOSH that were 


awaiting response other than TIB-58 obviously. 


I see it on the O drive now, but any other 


outstanding items, Joe or Brant that you, out 

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of this list here, the original list was seven 


items here. 


DR. ULSH: Not from my end, Mark. What do 


you think, Joe? 


MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I think that original 


list has been pretty consistent. I mean, I 


think those were the items. We haven’t really 


added to those. I think those are it. 


Ron, is there anything else beyond 


that original list that we’ve had on the books 


for the last four or five months? 


 MR. BUCHANAN: No, I’ll have to see how much 


the revised OTIB-58 covers, how many of those 


original five questions, and then we added two 


more, to see if the OTIB-58 and then if they 


do post that other data and their future, I 


think that probably covers most of them. I’ll 


just have to see if there’s any remaining 


after I review it. 


MR. GRIFFON: Maybe the other thing I was 


going to ask is for the meeting on the 26th if 


SC&A can come prepared and in a position to 


also discuss if there are any remaining issues 


with SEC implications or if there’s some 


outstanding issues, but they may not be SEC, 

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you know, they may be more of a, you know, we 


need, this may need fine tuning. We’re not 


sure about this, but it shouldn’t impact the 


SEC decision process. I mean, if you can 


maybe report out in that fashion if it’s 


possible. 


MR. FITZGERALD: We certainly will. I would 


say though once we have a chance to get into 


OTIB-58 certainly would want to discuss it 


with NIOSH and if there were some loose ends 


certainly see if we could take care of those 


in an intervening couple weeks. Because I 


think this is one where we’re just simply 


missing information to complete the analysis. 


We don’t have any clear issues, but we 


can’t, frankly, finish these conclusions with 


these holes. So it would be very helpful just 


to see if that new information satisfies that 


need or not, and then we’ll report on it on 


the 26th . But if there’s any questions or 


issues, Brant, we’ll certainly talk to the TBD 


author and maybe even schedule a call if we 


can somehow take care of this in the meantime. 


MR. GRIFFON: Good, Joe, thanks. I think 


this goes for any of these items. If we need 

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a technical call in the next few weeks, let’s, 


between you and Brant, Joe, you can --


MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I just think it’s 


good exposure on this. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, we don’t want to hold it 


up. 


MR. FITZGERALD: This new revision gets us 


pretty close. I’d just as soon see if we can 


achieve closure. 


MR. GRIFFON: That sounds good. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: We’re talking January 26th? 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, between now and the 26th
 

we’re hoping --


MR. FITZGERALD: Ron, this would be maybe, 


you know, once we have OTIB-58 the revision, 


going through, talking to Matt Smith, and then 


seeing where we stand maybe sometime next week 


and deciding at that point if we need to have 


a phone call or something. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Okay. 


SUPER S
 

MR. GRIFFON: All right, and I think the 


last item is the Super S question. Joe, this 


should be a brief update I imagine here. 


MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. Well, you know, this 

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is going back to June when Joyce -- and Joyce 


is on the phone -- briefed the Advisory Board 


and presented her analysis on OTIB-49 which 


was in draft. But certainly our conclusion 


was that it certainly was an acceptable way, 


the empirical approach, was an acceptable way 


and provided dose estimates that were claimant 


favorable. 


So we, I guess the bottom line is that 


we were in agreement with the NIOSH approach, 


and we went further to actually validate the 


cases that were the basis for OTIB-49 which, 


again, we were concerned about looking at the 


derivation of the OTIB, and Joyce has spent 


some time doing that. 


I think where we stand there, and I’ll 


certainly defer to Joyce if she wants to add 


anything, is that we’ve completed some of that 


review and looked at some of the cases that 


were available to us. But the other cases 


that we would want to examine to see if in 


fact they were encompassed by the model were 


not claimant cases but ones that were from the 


DOE file. And we’ve been working with Sam 


Glover to obtain these remaining cases. And I 

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think that’s the, that is certainly the key 


outstanding issue on the high fired review 


right now. It’s just that aspect of it. 


Joyce, do you want to add anything to 


that? 


DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes, the only other thing is 


that there is a lung correction factor that 


was applied to the data of all of the design 


cases, and NIOSH, we’re waiting for NIOSH to 


send us what is the correction factor that is 


being applied to the design cases, the lung 


data. 


Because there is all these differences 


between the numbers that were used in the 


design cases for lungs and the ones from HIS20, and there was one claimant that was 


between the design cases. And so we looked at 


the data from this claimant, and it’s the same 


factor that is applied so we are waiting for 


this factor. 


And actually we think if this factor 


was applied to correct for the design cases, 


that the factor should be applied to all the 


claimants, to all the workers. And somewhat 


we have been seeing with the claimant cases 

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they haven’t been applied. 


DR. ULSH: I can give you an update on at 


least one of those. The 25 case files that 


you were working with Sam to get, we have 


given those names to the folks at the DOE 


Mountain View Center, and they are pulling the 


files now. As soon as we get them we’ll 


forward them on to you. 


MR. GRIFFON: What do you think on a 


timeline on that, Brant? 


DR. ULSH: Craig, can you perhaps check with 


Scott and get a ETA on that? 


MR. LITTLE: Yes. 


DR. ULSH: As soon as I get an answer from 


Scott I’ll send it out. 


MR. GRIFFON: And as soon as you get them 


you’ll post them, right? 


DR. ULSH: Oh, absolutely. 


The lung correction factor, 


unfortunately, Jim had to leave. He’s kind of 


our lead on the OTIB-49, too. 


Joyce, is that in the white paper or 


is that something separate that you’re talking 


about? 


DR. LIPSZTEIN: No, no, that was told by us 

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in a telephone call that there was a 


difference between the numbers that were used 


for lung in the design cases and the one from 


HIS-20 because there was a correction factor 


that was applied to the lung results in HIS20. 


DR. ULSH: I’ll check into that, too. I’ll 


run it by Jim and get back to you on that. 


MR. GRIFFON: I remember that came up 


because of the discrepancy in the data versus 


the HIS-20, so that’s kind of how we, how 


Joyce found that. 


DR. LIPSZTEIN: And I checked that this 


correction factor would be the same one that 


OTIB on occupational internal dosimetry, 


Attachment B, talks about, but it’s not the 


same. 


MR. GRIFFON: All right, well, that’s 


probably a question Jim can help us with. And 


again, you know, all these items, if we need 


some correspondence in the next two weeks to 


help expedite this stuff would be great. 


Anything else on Super S, Joe? I 


think that’s the main --


MR. FITZGERALD: No, that’s pretty much it. 

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MS. MUNN: This is Wanda. Let me understand 


clearly on this the real, the only real 


outstanding issue is the lung correction 


factor, Super-S, or is that too simplistic? 


MR. GRIFFON: Excuse me? 


MS. MUNN: Is that too simplistic? 


MR. GRIFFON: Well, it’s the correction 


factor and the case data, the cases. This 


question has been hanging out for awhile was 


the question of whether the OTIB-49 actually 


was bounding of all those 25 cases from the 


fire. 


MS. MUNN: Yes, but the cases and the lung 


correction factor? 


MR. GRIFFON: Correct. 


MS. MUNN: The two issues are the only 


remaining ones. 


MR. GRIFFON: That’s correct. That’s the 


way I understand it, yeah. 


DR. ULSH: I don’t want to put words into 


anybody’s mouth, but it seems to me though 


that these two issues, while it certainly is 


important to resolve them, I think it might be 


one of those tractable issues. I don’t know. 


I’ll give SC&A a chance to disagree with that, 

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but --


MR. GRIFFON: I think for me the more 


important one is the correction factor I 


suppose. However it was selected, I think 


it’s something that can be modified, and it’s 


not probably an SEC issue. But the cases, you 


know, this has been the one hanging out for 


awhile. 


We just want to make sure that the 


selection of the cases was appropriate and 


bounding, and, you know, that’s the reason for 


that. That might be the more important of the 


two. From a technical standpoint probably 


we’d still want to understand this correction 


factor. But from an SEC standpoint I think 


it’s the question of OTIB-49 being bounding. 


MS. MUNN: And from a complex-wide issue 


this really is crucial for us to get tied 


down. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah. 


DR. ULSH: All right, we’ll check on the 


status of those case files, Mark, and let you 


know as soon as we have an answer. 


MR. GRIFFON: Appreciate it. 


MR. GIBSON: This is Mike. From a complex­
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wide issue there may be some other issues 


regarding Super S rather than just the ones 


we’re looking for in this case, I think. 


MS. MUNN: Oh, there’s no question about 


that, but this certainly is not going to be 


the only time we’re going to look at it. If 


we don’t have our approach and our full 


understanding, I doubt by the time we’re 


finished with this, then we’ll have to go 


through this again. 


MR. GRIFFON: Right, it’s certainly going to 


help us down the line. 


I think that’s the primary items. Joe 


or Brant, is that accurate? I mean the ones 


we’ve been discussing lately. I’ll turn to 


the matrix in a second. 


DR. ULSH: I don’t have anything additional, 


Mark. 


MR. FITZGERALD: Same here. 


MATRIX UPDATE
 

MR. GRIFFON: The second big item I had on 


the agenda was the, Roman numeral number two, 


was the update of the matrix. And I just sent 


that out actually this morning very early so I 


don’t know if everyone received it yet. But 

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it’s the full matrix, and what I tried to do 


was put these items from the summary action 


item list into the matrix, and I should 


caution everyone that this is draft form. In 


putting these action items back into the 


original matrix, it was apparent to me that 


there was some overlap with action items so 


you’ll see sometimes that I have action items 


referencing each other. And also, the last 


thing I would note is that the yellow 


sections, while at one point I was using them 


just for the new action, sometimes I left the 


yellow because I wasn’t sure if items had been 


completely resolved. It doesn’t necessarily 


mean they haven’t been resolved. It’s just 


that my notes weren’t good, my memory wasn’t 


good on that item so I left it in yellow. I’d 


ask that Brant and Joe and the work group, 


everyone, take a look at this and maybe if you 


see any errors, I’ll make a final correction 


of this matrix for us to use in the face-toface meeting. 


MS. MUNN: Thank you for getting that out, 


Mark. I’ll have to admit, although I haven’t, 


trying to read through it I was confused as to 

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whether or not, you’re right. I don’t know 


how one can simplify this. It’s an extremely, 


we have so many issues here, extremely 


cumbersome to deal with. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think part of the 


problem is in this case some of the issues 


came sort of from two sources, you know? 


MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


MR. GRIFFON: We have the petitioners’ items 


that we added onto the matrix so we already 


had a general item which sort of covered the 


same topic. And so then action items got kind 


of, you know, had two bases to be contained 


within, so I think we’ve been working from the 


summary the last couple meetings. 


But I think we need to reflect back to 


that original and make sure that we didn’t 


overlook anything important coming down to, I 


hope, our final work group meeting on the 26th . 


I’d like to make sure, just go back after one 


more time and make sure we have had answers, 


adequate answers, responses, whatever, for all 


the items. 


MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I guess one item 


that’s sort of invoked by your matrix item 26, 

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Mark, I think in terms of OTIB-38 we had a 


very productive, issue-specific phone call 


with Brant, Jim and I think Dave Allen 


regarding that. And I think we’ve reached 


closure on OTIB-38 from a conceptual 


standpoint. 


MS. MUNN: You said that was item 28? 


MR. FITZGERALD: I think 26 actually. You 


know, there’s been questions raised regarding 


OTIB-38, its derivation, and its application. 


And we had some questions on MDA values, and I 


think we had a pretty good, issue-specific 


phone call walking through that very 


carefully. And we issued some minutes which 


were circulated around. 


I think we were able to reach closure 


on that. And we do have certainly the 


consideration that was offered that the 95th
 

percentile distribution was certainly 


(unintelligible) we agree and that be applied, 


but that’s not an SEC issue per se. And we 


just, I think, will leave it at that. 


MS. MUNN: Well, we’re essentially at the 


point where we can say this one is okay. 


MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, we’re going to cover 

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that in our overall review report, but we did 


come out that way. 


MR. GRIFFON: I think, I don’t want to, 


there’s a couple coworker models, and I held 


off on the questions on the coworker models 


because we all remember the history of this, 


but --


MR. FITZGERALD: There’s multiple issues on 


the coworker model, and --


MR. GRIFFON: I mean, I should say you’ve 


closed on the conceptual part of this --


MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, that’s the 


clarification. It’s just for clarity’s sake 


on the completeness issue, completeness-slashdata integrity. There’s various facets to 


that issue as there are various facets to the 


coworker model issue. And in the course of 


the review, we come at it from several 


directions. And I think you’ve gotten the 


picture on the completeness for coworker. 


This is looking at it conceptually 


without getting into some of the issues of the 


data itself or how the data’s applied, just 


looking at it conceptually, its derivation, 


and I think we were able to get a certain 

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comfort level with the derivation that we 


didn’t have initially. 


So that’s the aspect of this that’s 


covered in item 26. It is a little confusing 


because we do treat different aspects of the 


coworker model at various places. 


MR. GRIFFON: I just wanted to make that 


clarification. Thank you, Joe. 


Anything, I don’t expect responses now 


on the items, but Brant, I’m almost sure 


there’s some that are in yellow that should no 


longer be in yellow so don’t be surprised to 


see that. 


MS. MUNN: I’m so glad to hear you say that. 


MR. GRIFFON: There’s highlighting, you 


know, where I know we have moved passed that, 


but so I would appreciate comments on that, 


what was closed out and, you know, that would 


be helpful. 


Anything else on the matrix? I will 


certainly also make, if I could ask for any 


comments on the matrix maybe by the end of 


this week, then I will try to pull in all the 


comments and get a final edit of the matrix 


middle of next week. And then we’ll have it 

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ready for the meeting on the 26th, and I’ll get 


it out to all interested parties as well 


through NIOSH. We’ll make that available. I 


apologize to anyone on the phone that got this 


very early this morning. I’m assuming that 


you did receive it, but I will try to get it 


to you a little earlier so you have a chance 


to review it as well. 


MS. MUNN: It’s a hard thing to deal with. 


MR. GRIFFON: It’s a beast at this point. 


MR. GIBSON: Appreciate you staying up until 


one o’clock in the morning to do it, too. 


MR. GRIFFON: The hard part was getting back 


up. 


SC&A FINAL REPORT
 

The SC&A final report, next item. I 


just put that on there because I was trying to 


think of our timeline toward the next, to the 


work group meeting and the meeting in 


February. 


And Joe, my sense is that at least 


you’re going to have work products or pieces 


that are delivered to NIOSH at this point for 


all these items we’ve discussed or many of 


these items. At some point you’re going to 

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assemble your full report on the review of the 


evaluation report and provide those. Do you 


have any sense, I know that it somewhat 


depends on this iterative process, but what 


are your thoughts on the timeline on that? 


MR. FITZGERALD: We have drafted pretty much 


all of the analyses and conclusions on the 


data that we have available to date, meaning 


that we effectively have the material in hand. 


What we will do is provide those pieces as 


we’ve discussed to drive these issues forward 


and revise those pieces as we go along in real 


time over the next week or two. 


But in doing this in real time if we 


can reach closure on issues and reflect that 


in the pieces that we’re actually working off 


of, we should be able to have this revised 


report available to the work group certainly 


in advance of the Board meeting and certainly 


toward the end of this month in and around the 


26th . So it’s really more of a question of how 


the iterative discussions go on these several 


key SEC issues that determines when the report 


would be generated. 


The material itself has been prepared. 

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We are sending all the attachments to, through 


Dave Staudt and also certain ones to Emily for 


Privacy Act screening this week, in fact, 


starting today. So we’re positioning to have 


this report ready certainly in advance of the 


work group. 


One consideration is clearly this is a 


big report and there’s a lot of material. So 


we’ve been trying to circulate pieces of this 


in advance so it will be fairly complex, and 


once we report -- the attachments themselves 


are probably a few hundred pages and the main 


body is certainly almost two hundred. So we 


certainly want to get those to the extent we 


can to the work group and to the Board soon 


enough so there’s a chance to digest it. And 


we’ve already started digesting pieces of it, 


and you’ll see other pieces as we go. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think I had asked, I 


had talked with Joe about this a little bit, 


and I had sort of asked for, you know, at this 


point I thought it’s better to distribute 


pieces in advance and get full discussion on 


those. I was a little nervous about having 


several iterations of a draft SC&A final 

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report going out until we come to better 


closure on these key items. And then I think 


you can roll your pieces back into your full 


report. I guess the intent though would 


certainly be, and I don’t think there is going 


to be any surprise in the data. We’re seeing 


all the pieces so when it gets pulled into the 


full report there shouldn’t be any things we 


haven’t discussed in full. 


MR. FITZGERALD: Or have seen in full. 


MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. ULSH: May I ask a question? We’ve seen 


the pieces that deal with safety concerns, the 


piece that deals with the data integrity 


examples. The log book piece is coming. I 


assume there’s going to be a piece on the 


other radionuclides including thorium and 


others? 


MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


DR. ULSH: Are there other major pieces, 


Joe? 


MR. FITZGERALD: Certainly one on 


completeness --


MR. GRIFFON: And the ’69 issue. 


MR. FITZGERALD: -- the ’69 issue. Those 

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three certainly have SEC implications so 


you’ll see those this week. 


MR. GRIFFON: I think those are the main 


ones, right? 


MR. FITZGERALD: Those are the main ones, 


right. We will be reviewing OTIB-58, but 


really the ones that strike us as SEC issues, 


you’ll have our written analysis this week. 


DR. ULSH: Okay, that’s great. Thanks. 


MR. GRIFFON: All right, and the last -- I’m 


sorry, Wanda. 


MS. MUNN: Well, I was just going to say on 


the Super S, who has the action now? 


MR. GRIFFON: Well, we’re waiting on these 


cases, I guess, and Jim Neton’s or NIOSH’s 


response on that conversion factor. So I 


think NIOSH has the action right now. 


MR. FITZGERALD: Joyce has evaluated the 


cases that were available to her already, 


model cases, and just needs to obtain those 


additional ones to finish. 


MS. MUNN: Okay, just wanted to make sure I 


knew where the action was. 


MR. GRIFFON: So I think we’re ready to 


close. The last item I had was the work group 

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meeting. I think I get from informal surveys 


was the 26th was going to be the best date we 


could do. I mean, Lew is not available, but 


key staff personnel for NIOSH and ORAU would 


be available on that day and only that day, so 


I think we probably need to stick with the 


26th . Do people agree with that? 


DR. WADE: Yeah, that’s fine with me. I can 


have someone cover for me. Do you have a 


sense of time, time of day? 


MR. GRIFFON: I’d like to start that at 9:30 


if we could. 


MS. MUNN: Since I’m going to be in 


Cincinnati, that’s not a problem. 


MR. PRESLEY: Yeah, are we going to be out 


at the airport? 


MR. GRIFFON: Yes, I think we’ll do the same 

--

MR. PRESLEY: That will be good. 

MR. GRIFFON: So 9:30 a.m. on the 26th . 

DR. WADE: Nine-thirty to five just be --


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, better leave it till 


five. 


DR. WADE: Okay, we’ll get it set up. 


MR. GRIFFON: And any final remarks? Any 

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comments from others on the line representing 


the petitioner or the, I think there’s some 


Congressional staff. 


 MS. BARRIE: Mark, this is Terry Barrie, and 


I was wondering if you could forward me the, 


if it’s possible, forward me the report from 


SC&A when it’s released? 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, Lew, once we’re in a 


position where they’re releasable to the 


public, we can do that, correct? 


DR. WADE: Correct. 


MR. GRIFFON: So I’ll coordinate that 


through NIOSH through Lew Wade, and, Lew, if 


you could make sure that they get out, too. 


DR. WADE: We’ll do it. 


MR. GRIFFON: I think there’s a lot on the 


line here. 


 MS. ALBERG: And that was my request as 


well. This is Jeanette with Senator Allard’s 


office. I was just going to see if that 


report was shareable, so thank you. 


MR. GRIFFON: Anything else? 


DR. WADE: Just again, this is Lew. Thank 


you again for your leadership and for the work 


group and all those involved. It’s been a 

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long process, but it’s a process that’s being 


undertaken appropriately in my opinion with 


the correct attention to detail, and we 


appreciate everyone’s hard work. 


MR. GRIFFON: And we’re getting there I 


think. We’re making good headway. 


DR. WADE: Thank you. 


MR. GRIFFON: And thank everyone on the 


line. We’ll be in touch soon and look for 


some e-mail notices on the technical phone 


calls. But they are not work group calls so I 


just want to keep the ball moving so that we 


can be really close to closure on the 26th . 


MS. MUNN: And I guess I have to make one 


comment with respect to the issue of whether 


to see this piecemeal or all in one lump. And 


even though we’ve seen most of it before, my 


personal thanks goes to all who can provide me 


this 12-course dinner in small bites. It’s 


very helpful for me to deal with that. 


MR. GRIFFON: I think it’s better as it 


comes out, too, instead of waiting until the 


big report at the end. 


MS. MUNN: Yeah, trying to handle a full 


meal deal is just almost more than anyone has 

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breath to do. 


MR. PRESLEY: And Mark, this is Bob Presley. 


I think we probably ought to ask one request 


that as we do get this piecemeal, and I think 


that’s great, that there be some type of a 


caveat put on it that this is a draft or not a 


complete report so that if this does get out, 


it does have something on it. 


MR. GRIFFON: Right, I think, how are these, 


I mean, we’ve shared a lot of these materials 


in the past already, and it’s not SC&A’s final 


report. And none of this, and we’ve had these 


comments going back and forth, so I don’t know 


what our protocol is on that. 


Joe, you haven’t necessarily --


MR. FITZGERALD: The material, we can 


certainly make sure that it does say draft. 


We’ll put working draft or draft for work 


group discussion. That’s the way we have it 


on the matrix. 


MR. PRESLEY: Yeah, something like that that 


distinguishes it from the final. 


MR. GRIFFON: Good point, good point. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Joe, we can also call them 


issue memoranda working draft, to distinguish 

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from draft of a report. 


MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, we’ll make sure it’s 


clear that these are working drafts for 


discussion in the working group. Now once 


they get reviewed for Privacy Act 


considerations by NIOSH, and we get these 


things back then we would forward them to 


certainly the, to Terry and Senator Salazar’s 


staff. Basically -- or NIOSH would do that --


and it would still have that proviso, but it 


would then be certainly out there, but it will 


be stamped draft. 


MR. PRESLEY: Appreciate that. 


MR. GRIFFON: All right, I think we’re ready 


to close unless there’s any remaining items. 


DR. WADE: Thank you all again. 


(Whereupon, the working group meeting 


concluded at 1:30 p.m.) 

______________________________ 

125 

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 


STATE OF GEORGIA 


COUNTY OF FULTON 


 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 


Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 


above and foregoing on the day of January 9, 


2007; and it is a true and accurate transcript 


of the testimony captioned herein. 


 I further certify that I am neither kin 


nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 


have any interest in the cause named herein. 


 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 


22nd day of February, 2007. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 


CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102